84 Chapter 84 - Gearing Up (1/2)

The first thing that Gren did when he woke up was ask the system if the update was complete.

<System Update Complete>

<Due to changes made to the research, all progress towards earning a research point has been reset>

<One research point has been rewarded to all Users>

<Your current balance is ten research points>

Gaining a research point was good but he couldn't afford the Simple Mechanics research project with ten points anymore.

{How many research points will be required to unlock firearms?}

<Firearms requires five unresearched elements: Carbon, Potassium, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur>

<Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur can be researched as part of the Nonmetals One research project>

<Nonmetals One costs five research points>

<Metals Two costs twenty research points>

<Firearms requires one unresearched technology: Simple Mechanics>

<Simple Mechanics costs twenty five research points>

<The total cost to research firearms is fifty research points>

<Master requires forty more research points>

Great.It was the same exact price as it was before.Gren was really hoping that it would be cheaper so that he could unlock them sooner.The cost of the internal combustion engine blueprints was more than 25 points so it was still a significant change.

Gren tried to sit up but his back hurt and he was still wearing his armor.

{Store my armor away.}

The slight drop from the armor disappearing didn't help his back problems but he was able to get up now.After getting up, he noticed that Jasmine was curled up into a ball a short distance from where he was.”Shit.”Gren realized a serious problem; Jasmine's body temperature was lower than it needed to be.

Gren quickly designed a metal structure shaped like a tent and had the system construct it before covering Jasmine with it.He needed to use fire magic to warm up the inside of the structure so there were small holes for ventilation.The large door on it was held shut by gravity and didn't have any way to lock it from the outside, just to be safe.There was no floor to the structure so he left some threaded holes on the bottom to allow for one to be mounted to it later on.

After making sure that the inside of the structure was warmed up and that Jasmine would be fine, Gren left to go see what time it was.There were a few people sitting at the tables by his statue and they were drinking something, probably alcohol since Rumi and Rodge were part of the group.”Oh, it's the rat slayer!Back from his nap with the dragon lady!”Why did Dill, one of the mercenaries, know that he was sleeping next to Jasmine?The rat slayer part was obvious with the statue next to where they were drinking.It was a conversation piece that no drunk person could resist talking about.

”How long was I asleep for?”Gren decided not to give the alcoholics the response that they wanted.He was already sick of the rat slayer comments after Rumi--or possibly one of the other dwarves--and a couple of the other women started trying to make a song about him while drunk.None of them were good singers or songwriters.The lyrics didn't even rhyme...