Chapter 274: Furnace and Fire (2/2)
Dexterity – 24,143 | Willpower – 98,789 | Intelligence – 53,146
Charisma – 17,502 | Luck – 27,029 | Perception – 18,807
Health: 160.1 Million/160.1 Million | Health Regen: 1.6 Billion/min or 27.0 Million/sec
Stamina: Infinite | Ambient Mana 4.001 Trillion
Mass: 8.7 Million Pounds(4.0 Million Kilos~)
Height: 15'11 (4.8 meters)
Damage Res - 99.17% | Dimensional Res - 100%
Phys Dam Bonus – 27.8 Million % | Damage Bonus – 40%
The Rise of Eden - enhances base stats by 30%, increased to 40% to allies within the radius of aura.
Mana Conversion - 4.0 Billion mana/min siphoned into runes and armor.
It was a massive boost to my mana generation. If anything, it made all my investment into endurance look silly. My own magic would never compare to this kind of production. Of course, the health and stamina were still useful at the time of investment, but one furnace already beat all those years of boosting endurance. The more I thought about it, the less true my initial line of thinking became.
The only reason I could generate this mana flow from a single furnace was because of my mana generation. If I hadn't had my previous experience, this would be impossible. If anything, more investment into endurance would be wise, considering it increased my overall furnace potential. It gave me the willpower to contain the mana flow, and it still had all the other stat-boosting effects it always boasted.
I would need as much of that as I could get given the situation I was in. My guild stood at the very center of the Blighted Schism, and that required me to be in tip-top shape. Combine that with the fact Schema didn't give me anything from facing Lehesion, and I needed a few boosts. In some ways, I understood Schema omitting an endless stream of attributes and stats for me. I mean, the guy had a lot on his plate at the moment. Still, this kind of stinginess blew my mind. I saved thousands of people by distracting Lehesion. I risked my guild, my life, and even my planet. For that, I expected some kind of level cap increase or something.
After searching every nook and cranny of my status, I found nothing. At least Schema couldn't deny me my extra skillpoints from my skills. Knowing that, I checked out my trees. After pouring all of my gained points into the Sovereign tree, I passed the 7,500 mark and then some. I was almost there.
In many ways, to truly be sovereign is to control the use of all things you touch. The world will bend to your fingertips, empires will crumble, and no enemy will forget your name. It will be carved into their mind like words unto stone, the utterance unforgettable, the memory eternal.
Class Completion: 75% finished.
New Mana Type Unlocked: Entropy
For such an enormous investment, this wasn't exactly the most rewarding tree. By now, I expected that, but I couldn't help but scratch my head at the new mana type. Considering my Dimensional Wake ability, having a new mana type gave me a lot of flexibility. To my knowledge, entropy had a lot of different meanings as well, but in the end, most of those meanings revolved around degeneration.
After trying to will entropy into existence, I lost steam at the idea of it being its own unique mana type. Without any real help here, I hypothesized that entropy was a fusion of all three basic mana types: origin, dominion, and augmentation. To that end, I did my best to create all three and blend them together in my hand.
No new mana type spawned from it, all of the manas melding into a brown blob that wisped into nothing. Without that being an answer, my next best guess was fusing the three upper tiered mana types: primordial, quintessence, and ascendant mana. If that was the case, getting the most bang for my buck required learning primordial mana.
It was something I'd meant to do for a while, and this was the best lead I had. Searching through Schema's internet got me nothing, and it wasn't like someone would tell me in person either. Factions in Schema's universe hoarded knowledge to get themselves ahead. That was something the rebels were right about, even if I didn't want to admit it.
All that being said, I was sitting at over 9,000 points in my Sovereign tree. It wouldn't be long now before it was completed, and that meant unlocking my class. For now, I would stick to making my last push to get that over with. At the same time, unlocking entropy mana also seemed necessary, and I needed a sovereign skill to go with my sovereign class. Those goals synergized, which outlined a plan ahead of me. Following this plan, I walked out of the dungeon with Helios, a new goal before me.
As we left, my grip on the moles and ants weakened. They ran out of their holes, and skirmishing began once more as we walked across an abandoned Springfield. It was sad seeing some of the landmarks so dilapidated, the city a relic of a foregone time. Without my immediate presence, the vibrations underfoot grew stronger. By the time I jetted Helios and me to Mt. Verner, the eldritch were back to tearing out each other's throats.
Eh, an easy war leads to a hard peace.
Once I dropped Helios off at his place, I picked up Diesel from the floors below. After all the grinding with the furnace, I looked forward to doing something like my golem work. As we got up to the engineering area Diesel partitioned out for us, I scratched my head at the engineer's changes,
”Doesn't this seem...excessive?”
The quirky inventor shook his head,
”What? This is the least we can expect.”
I stared at three new engineering stations. It was like an industrial pipeline with several partitioned out work areas. Each site separated into three categories we needed for the supergolems. At the leftmost side, the magic department congregated mages that tutored under Torix. The lich's students were ready for fieldwork, and Diesel gave the young guns a project they could really prove themselves on.
On the side opposite to them, many of the workers Kessiah tutored forever ago toiled on the physical movement section. These were combat specialists, and while they weren't quite at my level yet, they freed me up from having to do that section myself. I appreciated not having a thousand tasks pulling me in different directions, so I counted their involvement as a blessing.
At the center of it all, Torix himself worked on the mind magic telepathic bindings. It made my little hobby project look like a joke by comparison. I laughed at myself when seeing it all. After my big moment with the furnace, this really brought me back down to earth. These guys already made more progress in two days than I had in two weeks.
Eh, nobody was perfect, so I just let it go.
What I couldn't accept was how little they needed me. Every part of the project was now handled and in full motion. I, with my amateurish designs, would just slow everybody down. At least they still needed me for supplies and runic translations. They didn't know the cipher, after all, but those specifics would come last after all the other work had been done.
That meant I had nothing to do with my time here, everything getting moved along nicely without my input. Though I enjoyed the rapid progress, this was supposed to be a time of peace for me. It kind of felt like Diesel upped and robbed my project from me. In the end, it was for the good of the guild, and that's what mattered most.
But, yeah, it left me kind of sad.
I smothered that bout of melancholy, moving on towards my other work. It wasn't like I was left wanting for other things to do. Ophelia needed rings for gravity and matter making, along with a charged blue core. None of that was difficult in the slightest, most of it taking minutes. With all this newfound time on my hands, I stepped just outside the work stations and started crafting.
Ah, peace.
I started with a bit of melted steel that the engineers had offhand. There was no way in hell I was about to use my own skin for Ophelia. That was reserved for my guildsmen. That was such a strange thought, but eh, so was being a dimension. I accepted that strangeness and moved on.
After getting the material, I melted the steel and molded it into four rings. I could do two for the barebones of what Ophelia asked for, but I wanted to do this right. If I half-assed my rings, Ophelia would half-ass her tutoring and golem assistance. With that in mind, I partitioned each ring out to accomplish different things.
The first ring would convert mana into gravitational energy. The next would offer up primary skills for using that gravitation. The third ring would help with making matter, and like the second, the fourth ring would then help the user create specific kinds of matter. These were elementary, simple inscriptions that would never rival my own abilities. They would allow the user to do something without any practice, however.
Considering Ophelia needed rings to handle these abilities, she'd need the backup rings for usability reasons. All these combined would sum up what Ophelia wanted well. For me, the difficulty involved paled compared to Torix's new body or even Althea's cannons.
In fact, the first ring took all of four minutes, the inscriptions simple and second nature by now. I trusted my abilities here, and I made no further adjustments. On the next ring, I put in five skills for gravitational magic. These were gravity and antigravity wells along with their matching panel magic. To top it off, I gave it a gravitational vortex ability. Yeah, they were pretty basic, but Ophelia would just have to deal with it.
After finishing the gravity side, I moved on to the matter generation aspect. Knowing my own limits, I took my time with this enchantment. It was a trickier inscription, requiring several rewrites. After my third attempt, I just let myself flow through the runic carvings, hoping it would work out. Holding the ring in my hand, I gave the metal band an IV drip's worth of mana.
From it, crabs poured out.
I had no idea why this was the case. For some reason, the creation of crabs was just...second nature to me. I couldn't comprehend it, but this, despite being utterly ridiculous, would totally work. Fuck it. I hoped Ophelia liked crabs because that was what she was getting.
With the ring of crab creation finished, I went on to the natural part of matter making. I molded the final ring so that it converted crabs into five other kinds of matter, from dirt to stone. None of it was useful to me, but she gave me a really airy request. I mean, it wasn't like a matter generation ring was something simple and easy to do. She likely intended on a few limitations when asking for it.
And limitations she would get.
If she didn't like it, oh well. I'd have to learn the whole conscious creation thing on my own. It wouldn't be the first time. With everything ready, I sent a friend request to Ophelia, and she replied in an instant. I asked for her coordinates, mentioning I was done with our deal. After reading a sarcastic reply, I moved back towards the warps on Mt. Verner's side.
Schema still powered them, and before I knew it, I was in a different world. The ionizing spray wafted off of me as I stepped onto a gilded walkway. Someone took an orichalcum base and gave it golden trim, the practicality of the green metal clashing with the indulgence of the gold ore.
That wasn't the only weird design choice. Further down the platform, Massive windows exposed a massive city, red curtains framing a sunset in the distance. The Empire redesigned Schema's warp so that it showcased the wealth and power of this specific city, which would be expensive. Why they would do that was beyond me.
That objective display of wealth showcased itself in many other ways as I continued outside the landing zone. Along the outskirts of this hyper futuristic city, faint, hexagonal plating surrounded the city. A blue core protected this area. Peering closer, I learned I was wrong. Several blue dungeon hearts protected this city. This barrier was multilayered, the sheer investment absurd. Beyond these central cores, colossal turrets aimed at a distant skyline. The clouds sauntered about above, this place protected from the elements entirely. As I walked out into another gilded roadway, even the air felt conditioned for comfort.
This was luxury incarnate. The city makers conditioned the air for an entire city.
Around me, many albony walked about, most of them red and orange masked. They waltzed in and out of stores, not a worry in the world weighing them down. It contrasted Mt. Verner's pragmatic, raw feel, so much so that it almost gave me whiplash.
I mean, they used real giant diamonds as crystalline figures throughout the city. These figurines played with the sun's rays, hauntingly beautiful shadows stretching out of them. Each piece was crafted for multiple angles of light to pass through it, each time of day considered in its design. For now, the light angled from a sunset, and longer shadows meant more room the artisan to work with.
This resulted in scenes of battle, victory, and prestige for the albony. From exotic, large creatures fighting to elegant birds flying, the shade cast images of a culture saturated in harmony and prosperity. It was a sight to behold, and I took my time soaking in all the various works and shops nearby.
I walked around these shadows, not wanting to disrupt their beauty. None of the other aliens here followed suit, nearly no one even giving the artwork a second glance. It was as if exposure to these artworks made them numb to the beauty around them. It was sad in a way, like throwing pearls before swine.
My rash judgments of other people aside, I passed a dozen cafes, teashops, and smoothie places. Among these competing franchises and specialty stores, I found Ophelia speaking with several other albony. She stood out amongst her compatriots, her eye for glamor drawing attention.
I couldn't blame her since I drew my fair share of stares as well, probably more than her given my rugged, coarse appearance. Pulling my helmet off my face, several of Ophelia's albony friends screamed as I stared down at them. Ophelia turned to me, and I lifted a hand,
”Yo.”
Ophelia facepalmed before speaking through gritted fangs, ”What are you doing here?”
I floated the four rings I made to her, each fresh and polished. I pointed at them,
”I'm finished. I wanted to get our deal going as fast as possible. The rebels won't kill themselves, after all.”
Man, my wording was awful. Either way, Ophelia grabbed her rings, inspecting them,
”How are you finished? Half of what I asked for is barely even possible.”
I gestured to each ring, ”Try them out. They work.”
She put on the ring of crab creation, truly my favorite of the bunch. As she channeled mana into the ring, a flow of crabs poured out, covering the table and her friends. She stood up, letting out a girlish scream with her friends.
Ah, that was satisfying.
”What in Schema's name did you given me?”
I spread out my hands, ”I call it the Ring of Crab Creation. That's the matter maker you asked for.”
She shook a crab off her sleeve before seething,
”This is a creature. How am I supposed to use this for...well, anything?”
I raised a hand, ”For starters, you have no idea how many restaurants would kill for that ring. As grotesque as those creatures may look, they taste damn good when steamed. Add a bit of salt and butter, and man, they are good.”
She stomped a crab underfoot, the meat going to waste,
”What other surprises do your rings have in store for me?”
I pointed each ring out as I explained,
”That one turns mana into gravitation energy. That ring hones the energy into specific techniques. That last ring can turn the crabs into other materials. I didn't know which materials you wanted, so I went with steel, soil, water, stone, and crab.”
She eyed me with a wary glance, wondering if this was an elaborate prank. That was fair. In many ways, this might as well have been an elaborate ruse, but hey, she got what she asked for. Ophelia used the paired rings for gravitation, lifting herself up. Using another round of crab creation, she made a bunch of stone crabs, each thudding against the ground like bricks. Her mana flow depleted, and she fell onto the ground, busting her ass.
Her friends laughed at their cafe table while Ophelia frowned at the rings,
”Ouch...Well, these aren't actually useless, especially the gravity ones. They're actually excellent. Very, very excellent.”
She poked one of the stone crabs, ”They could use a few quality of life adjustments, though.” She stared up at me, ”How did you make these so quickly?”
I offered a hand, ”They're my specialties, so I can whip them up whenever. You just need to take them seriously, and they'll serve you well.”
She grabbed my hand, though she grabbed only two of my fingers since her hands were so small. She stood up, brushing off the dust from her robe,
”I...I suppose they'll do. A deal's a deal then. I'll get ready to help you with your golem project. When will you need me to help?”
I evaporated the crabs near us with Event Horizon, bless their poor little souls,
”Right now, if you're not busy.”
She turned back to her friends, each of the albony staring at us from behind red masks,
”I'm in the middle of something right now, but I can come in a few hours from now if you'd like.”
It was surprised me how agreeable she was being about this whole process. I shrugged,
”If that's what it takes, then sure. You'll be arriving at my guild during nights, and you'll be working with a temporal specialist to teach me primordial mana. Let me know if the rings need tweaking after you've tried them out for a while, and I'll work on them when you arrive. Also, I'll need to warp you to and from there.”
She raised an eyebrow, ”So no coordinates?”
”No. Right now, security is more important than ever. You know that.”
Remembering the rebellion, Ophelia and her friend's carefree attitudes faded. I gestured around at everything, trying to change the tone of the conversation,
”So, where is this place?”
One of Ophelia's friends spoke up from the table, ”You weren't kidding when you said this guild is new. So yeah, this is Olstatia, the Empire's capital.”
I stared at the multilayered blue cores, all my questions about the investment for this place answered. I nodded slowly, ”Ah, I'll have to ask Obolis how he keeps his world's defended.”
Ophelia walked back to her table, sitting down, ”That's an easy one. He doesn't make the wrong enemies.”
I scoffed, ”Eh, If that were the case, Obolis wouldn't be putting himself up against the rebels.” I turned, leaving them,
”Cya.”
”Wait a second. Can you charge this blue core for this territory? You should already feel it draining your mana right now. I need you to power it up to full. That's part of our deal.”
I stared up, ”Oh, so you run one of the districts in the capital of the Empire, huh? That must be why your mask is both red and black.”
She shooed me off,
”Yeah, yeah, go finish charging the core and let me enjoy the rest of my evening.”
I left Ophelia and her friends, satisfied with the results I got. Halfway to the warp, I searched for the blue core tugging on my mana. I found a slight, minuscule tax being paid to the forcefield. Surging mana into that tether, mana rose from my frame, bursting into my surroundings. The sheer heat off my skin melted the orichalcum beneath me, and nearby diamond statues ignited.
They exploded, firing shrapnel nearby. Shop windows burst, and a few albony screamed. I raised a hand, pulling the mana back to me, willing the core charge to slow down. I didn't expect that kind of chaos to erupt from just channeling mana, but at this point, it might as well have been a weapon.
Once I finished with that, I regenerated some of the broken glass and paid out a few shopkeepers nearby. It cost a few hundred thousand credits to repair the damages, but that's what I get for not paying attention. After getting out of that complete mess, I got to the warp. It kind of surprised me that Ophelia changed her attitude towards me.
I mean, she wasn't exactly the kind of person I wanted to be friends with, but we didn't despise each other anymore. For her to share her skills, that's all I wanted. After taking the warp back to Mt. Verner, I took one last glance at Olstatia. It was a beautiful, vast city. It was so large, it looked endless, and it might have been.
This was a megacity supported by several worlds worth of resources. It was an economic and political backbone for many societies all under one banner, and that reach showed itself with the sheer splendor displayed here. In time, maybe Mt. Verner would be the same for Earth, though I didn't want to take over planets like Obolis had. I wanted my guild to give everyone a hand up instead of the Empire's more imperial approach.
Either way, I got back to Mt. Verner with much of my night left to me. With a reasonable amount of time left, I sat within earshot of the golem project. This time, I left a wall of trees and stones between us, their machines and discussions only a faint whisper in the background. Chrona's tutoring would begin tomorrow, and we'd be trying out a few new strategies on Blegara. This would be the only part of my schedule where I could focus on my own.
Knowing that, I contemplated how to get a Sovereign skill. It would require three legendary skills, and I already had two with Force of Nature and Apotheosis. These skills gave me a tremendous influence over the physical world around me, along with creation and rune carving. They suited me well for the most part.
Instead of just adding some random assortment of skills next, I wanted something to accentuate those two abilities. Hastening like what Chrona and Obolis did was a must; that would make me challenging to beat in direct combat. I was already taking on Lehesion in that regard, meaning any more oomph in that arena, and I would be dominant.
Outside of that, I was stuck on the whole golem creation thing. The idea of ending the need for dungeons kept bouncing in my head. If I could get really, really good at making golems, I could lockdown Earth and any colonies we made. We wouldn't need to fuss over other people's territories. I could go to a fringe world, golemize it, then make it an Earthen colony. Maybe I could lease my golems too, sort of like some mercenary company.
Those plans needed primordial mana for functioning. Otherwise, they'd bottleneck from a production standpoint. With this furnace, my mana production exceeded the rest of my guild combined. If I got a handle on the entire production process, I could make hundreds of golems a day. Territories would fall under my control, and I could let people govern themselves for the most part. I'd set up some regulation, but I didn't want to interfere too much. Part of that was simply not wanting to be clogged up with leadership duties like Helios had been. Another part of me wanted to avoid the dictatorship that the Empire stuck with.
After seeing how they handled Blegara, I didn't want to make the same mistake.
Either way, the core of those ideas rested on making golems. Thinking that all through, I racked my brain for memories of my time in the mythical compendium. In general, I learned skills quick there, and using that same template would work here again. For instance, the way I unlocked origin mana was by getting myself into a certain mindset.
The same could be said for ascendant and quintessence mana as well. Dominion mana was an outlier, my exposure to a dimensional tear unlocking that. I didn't understand how that worked, so mimicking that feat stood as impossible for now. Therefore, the best way to get primordial mana was to get into the right mindset.
Considering origin mana was about being at peace and letting go, that had to be a part of primordial mana. Dominion mana, on the other hand, was all about enacting a complete and absolute control, one led by an iron fist and without compromise. To me, those mana types were polar opposites. I couldn't understand how in the hell those mindsets meshed together.
I'd wait until my two primordial teachers arrived before I dived any deeper into the subject. I redirected my focus back towards my furnace for now. Tampering with the gemstone, I ramped up the mana production. To do so, I sat down and meditated, my legs crossed and my mind steeled. As I did, I sent a stream of mana into the jade at the center of my chest. It unleashed a violent, savage rush of energy as before.
I kept this brutish flow slow at first, trying to assimilate it without as much struggle. As time passed, I revved up this visceral inundation, practicing the newfound skill. For instance, I began using the furnace by burning some of the air around me. This dispersed the energy throughout a cloud, meaning I needed to condense it towards me instead of letting it leak out.
This time, I shifted my approach using minuscule bits of my armor. This smoothed out the process since it kept the mana condensed from the get-go. A few of the other tricks I figured out involved being calm. If the mana met my mind in a battle, it too battled me off of instinct. If I was serene when it arrived, that placated the mana some, making it easier to overtake.
These adjustments compiled until I found myself in a balance between stomping the energy out and inviting it to settle down. Stuck in this ebb and flow, I reached a sort of zen state. Everything blurred out of existence, this moment becoming all that mattered. It let me take a break from my worries, my concerns, and even my insecurities.
Minutes turned into hours, the sheer rush of mana from the furnace overwhelming. That rush crashed into my mind, but I met that cascade of energy like a brick wall against some raging tempest. In these moments, I did not yield. Over those struggles, I did not relent. Keeping my eyes closed, the dark void around me became comfortable. This rush of energy from the gemstone, it formed into a shifting shape, some monstrous beast.
Honing my mind against this onslaught, my awareness of my surroundings expanded. The energy flow turned visible, and it gained animation. It moved, writhed, and shifted. In its chaos, there was beauty among its everchanging nature. It wanted freedom absolutely, and there was something magnificent about that uncompromising desire.
It met my own mana, my body aflame with energy. It surprised me, seeing myself in this new light. At times, I forgot just how far I'd come. Compared to the dim trees, birds, and wildlife around me, I ignited my surroundings with life. I brimmed with endless vitality, the kind that overwhelmed with its intensity.
If I let that sheer lifeforce flood my surroundings, they would be submerged in the incoming flood. I chained that flood down using shackles forged from my will. These tethers were of iron, seeming unbreakable, yet they contained a monstrous, terrifying force. That was my own mana, I realized.
This is what the eldritch feared.
I comprehended their horror now. If this was how the eldritch saw, their subservience made sense now. The phantasmal machinations of my mana feasted on my physical body, the focal point centered on the furnace. These endless mouths were salivating, each of them starving for more energy. There was no end to their hunger, and they would feast forever or until nothing remained to be eaten.
As this delicate balance became clear to me, I gained a new skill.
New skill gained! Mana Sense(lvl 10) - Many can feel their own mana. It takes one with great reach to feel the mana of others.
It was a strange sort of perception. It scoped out everything in a blurry series of shapes instead of hard lines. This dynamic, flowing view left me confused as I stared down at my hands, my eyes closed. As before, my frame was ablaze. I raged in a swirling pit of fire, blinding when compared to the weak flows of the life around me.
Once more, I peered at myself with a clearer picture. I was a demon, a monster with an unceasing form. I squealed out into my surroundings, my jaws opened and starving. These twisting forms wished to feast upon all that was around me. Surrounding these monsters, the chains of my will suppressed the gnashing teeth and rabid maws. It was as if I was a delicate balance of two forces, one aimed at control and the other aimed at greed.
As I let my furnace rev down, the aberrations faded down, becoming less vehement. They were my mana, manifested outward in a way I could now see. Using my own mana, I fed the inscriptions of my cipher, these demons growing in size and scope once more. It gave me a few ideas of what I needed to do to get the eldritch under my control on Blegara.
I mean, if I could get really good at this whole furnace burning thing, I'd be a horror for anyone with a mana sense. Thinking of that, I thought of Helios. He sensed mana, and that's why his blindness wasn't much of a handicap for the guy. If that was the case, I must genuinely look like some monster to him. That might be why he stood back from me when I used the furnace. I'd ask him when I thought of it later.
Regardless of appearances, this was a solid way of spending time. I got the furnace burning full blast, my limit reached pretty soon. As I gained more and more control of the dark jade, I made more and more mana. This gave me a tremendous level of control over the furnace. Matter Conversion was no longer some foreign, strange skill. It reminded me of walking, a task I gave no thought yet was undeniably useful.
The merits of my many trees showed themselves here. Many of them enhanced my learning rate for mythical tiered skills and above. Those factors combined with my natural inclination for the furnace burning. Those factors culminated with my progress, and I shot forward in understanding by leaps and bounds.
It gave me confidence for my next fight with Lehesion. He'd never expect me to change my abilities like this all of a sudden. I'd show him where and how my magic progressed, and he'd feel my full fury.
In hours, I gave myself a notable increase to my cipher augments. My endurance increased by over 5,000 total points. Considering I exceeded 100K endurance already, that actually wasn't an enormous increase. At the same time, weeks of this would result in substantial changes. Months of this progress would make me into a real monster.
The new influx of mana gave me more than just cipher augments, however. I no longer needed to stick with simple inscriptions for my cipher work anymore. Fueling them wouldn't be nearly as tricky, meaning I could create far more complex changes to this body using the cipher. Hell, I had held back because I was terrified of warping my mind into mush like Yawm had.
A significant find I hadn't realized earlier was Obolis mentioning my response to the cipher wasn't normal. He said it was as if I was separate from my body altogether. That might be true, especially considering I stayed conscious even when I was a pile of mush. That meant I could experiment with the cipher without needing to worry so much.
Of course, I wasn't about to go crazy or anything. That being said, giving this body a few new abilities wasn't out of the question anymore. I mean, if I got a hold of the cipher inscriptions on the elemental furnace, I could carve it into my skin and use it on my own. It would be like cutting out the middle man. Who knew, in time, I might even improve on the formula.
I peered down at the furnace. Yup, incomprehensible gibberish. Based on how cryptic and obscure the inscriptions were, well, that would take a while.
Either way, the potential was there, and that's what counted. I stayed deep in this meditative state until the morning, and the sunrise stirred me out of my concentration. Standing upright, I stretched my back before rolling my shoulders. Within the hour, I was back at my place, waking Althea up from her night of sleep.
We shared a morning breakfast together, and she talked to me about some of the Empire's juicy gossip she learned from Caprika. I couldn't have cared less, but I listened as well as I could despite that. Althea always listened to me even when I talked about runes or fighting, and I know those topics bored her. I kept my discussions short because of that, but I still wanted to return the favor in full for her.
This peaceful morning passed, and we met with Florence and Helios already grouped around their living quarters. Everyone arrived soon after, from Torix all the way to Hod. Our resident warper rested well last night, his general demeanor improving from before. He still wasn't used to warping this much, but the guy was adjusting.
Soon we'd all be adapting to new circumstances on the ahcorus's homeworld. For now, however, Blegara stood in our way. I smiled at the prospect. We all aimed to shake things up before we left the blighted world. In my case, I'd do more than rock the boat.
I intended to flip the whole world upside down.