Chapter 1006 (2/2)

Thankfully, the new arm performed admirably, with an even higher articulation than the original design. And although Randidly hadn’t Engraved any Skill into it, he really felt no need to do so without a specific goal. The physical destructiveness of Chulroon’s chisel was practically a broken Skill all on its own. The capability of a Level 99 weapon made from a Fate lived up to the hype.

Besides, not Engraving now kept the option open for the future, in case he encountered a problem that he couldn't easily solve on his own.

Combined with the extremely thick image of timelessness that was slowly radiating outward from the limb, Randidly was immensely satisfied with how things had turned out. Even if it was difficult for Randidly to do anything to improve his images at the moment, he knew that the constant nurturing of the image would cause a qualitative change eventually.

Plus his newfound arm had the added benefit of allowing Randidly to resume his Engraving training. Engraving with a single arm was possible when he relied on Influence of the Molten Core to manipulate an item, but it also split his attention in too many directions. His precise control of the image he was using wavered frequently.

Even with Randidly’s high Control, he had his limits.

Which, in turn, had made Randidly finally realize the big issue that was holding him back from improving his image: Uniformity. Like Mana in Engraving, the level of detail in his image needed to be uniform. In his enthusiastic attempts to increase the detail in his image, he had painted in broad but haphazard strokes. As such, the image was like a poorly balanced weapon with a heavy tip.

It was possible for him to grow more skilled in its usage, but it was probably better to just spend some time shifting the weapon back toward balance before he learned bad habits.

Therefore, with his other areas of training at a plateau, almost all of Randidly’s final days were consumed by the pursuit of Engraving.

While Randidly continued to methodically move his limbs to keep from stiffening, he walked out of his training area and headed East, toward the plateau. After walking for about ten minutes, he reached the sprawling bones of the moving city that he had begun to assemble out of the pieces that Wendy had designed.

Like rib bones of an ancient clockwork giant, the curving metal legs and knobby rivets gleamed like silver and brass in the late afternoon light. Piles of intricate gears lay stacked in containers, covered by canvas overhangs to protect the pieces from the elements. More than anything else, the area that Randidly used for the assembly of the moving city reminded Randidly of an abandoned paleontological dig. It was all deep pits, dust, and strange bones laying scattered about.

At first, Randidly was rather worried about the assembly and movement between the outside world and the Soulskill, but it seemed that the restriction that his Domain placed upon people didn’t affect items in the same way. Therefore, Randidly had workshops in both the Dungeon and his Soulskill, so he could experiment and tinker with working pieces whenever he had time.

Therefore, he was rather free to assemble portions both within and without of his Soulskill. However, the larger the object was, the more exhausting it was to move between the two realms. As such, Randidly had no plans to make any single piece any larger than these large legs. Then he could move them between the Soulskill and outside world with reasonable ease and assemble the final product near Erickson Steel.

But Randidly continued past through the towering architecture of steel and bone to another area. After all, today was another day that Randidly planned on throwing himself into further study of Engraving. This work area was another ten minutes jog East, right at the edge of the plateau. Along the way, Randidly politely nodded to several patrols of his Riders that were moving through the area.

Not that it was really necessary. Now, an entire year later, there was basically no hostile force remaining the Dungeon. But new resources harvested from the plateau came through this area before being processed by Randidly, so he couldn’t exactly blame them for taking their jobs seriously.

Finally, he reached his Engraving practice ground.

Here, Randidly had his Riders bring him huge stones to construct a tower that stretched upward toward the sky in an approximation of the lighthouses found within his Soulskill. The heavy stone building was so tall that it stretched up past the lip of the plateau and into the sky beyond. Once he had the building made, Randidly had used All Things Succumb, Yet Time Whirls the Earth to develop a series of plans for a complex, vast Engraving that would cover the surface of the tower.

Even though all Randidly did was develop concepts with the Skill, each use found him exhausted. And the next day, he would try again with a more specific image in mind and let the plans get refined just a little further. In a way, it felt like Randidly was working with another individual to make the final Engraving. Which was slightly disturbing.

Every day included a few hours that Randidly simply came before the tower and studied the plans that the ultimate Engravings version of himself had designed. He examined the small models that he had made to test the viability of the designs. Then, using the Engraving encyclopedias as a reference, Randidly furiously studied to raise his own understanding of Engraving.

What was unfortunate was that improving his knowledge didn’t truly raise his Skill Level. It certainly made it easier for his Skill Level to improve, but there would be no direct improvement in the Skill Level from studying. As such, Randidly was beginning to feel that he was improving quite a bit in terms of Engraving while his Skill Level remained completely static.

He knew that he could rectify this rather quickly if he would spend a few weeks just testing his theories with repeated experiments, but now this foundation building seemed more relevant to his future tasks.

So with glittering emerald eyes, Randidly studied. Not long now…

He glanced up at the towering stone pillar, unadorned and smooth. Soon, we will have to see how well this works. An emerald, flaming eye as the Engraving pattern… a Skill that can Level which will enable the entire city to recognize friends or foes just from looking… Let’s try to push the envelope as much as possible.