Chapter 915 - Mask on (Patreon)

POV Nathaniel

Inscriptions are magic. I mean it, truly. Even now, I kind of don't know fully how they work. I go mostly by vibes, improvising, and constant changes to fix whatever circuit logic I just fried. My mind is durable enough for me to run some simulations and keep the structure open in my head, then inscribe stuff and change that structure again on the fly.

Many other inscription specialists can't do that. They don't have that kind of mental capacity. They cannot handle mana as fast as I can, nor can they deal with the trouble a haywire inscription causes.

So they study. A lot. And rely on blueprints. There are countless trace pathways, logic gates, conditional loops, and structural adaptations to learn. You can spend decades memorizing line geometries, terminal nodes they require, and how to power them. You learn a lot about mana-conductive paints and materials, and what sort you need, always trying to balance out quality and an immense cost.

But I'm rich, and Group 4 is rich thanks to me. We also steal a lot, so we have plenty of books, many of which would be the treasured property of any inscribing disciple.

I said they are magic, but I still think that what we did with computers back on Earth is much more magical.

We took silicon, literal sand and stone. Well, not we, but people much smarter than me. Still, this is where I'm willing to bask in some of that achievement as someone from Earth. We purified that rock into microscopic patterns and started passing lightning through it.

Who the hell even gets an idea like that? What sort of lunatic do you need to be to etch billions of tiny trails onto a slice of refined rock, feed it electricity, and trick it into thinking logically?

We weren't even able to do that with a wom-

I mean teenagers! But how cool is that! A rock made to think, hold memories, make decisions, and even render entire simulations so some poor child can use their mom's credit card for thousands of dollars in microtransactions.

Inscriptions are something I have always thought of as similar. Many of such lines are often like circuits. Then they are fed by mana. Apparently, you have to set your mana's "voltage" too, but I personally never had that problem. I learned through mistakes, and I seem to have a knack for it.

It is a gift.

I have seen many inscribed items, and in my mind, the training orbs from Lissandra still remain the absolute peak. I remember her showing me some during our time on the 5th floor, and the sheer density of a few of them is comparable to the most nanoscopic or something chips we are able to create on Earth.

Except on Earth, you need multiple huge companies with tens of thousands of people in total. You need devices that seem like magic to anyone who doesn't understand them, along with machines as big as small houses just to etch those microscopic patterns.

Lissandra created them in a cave. With a box of scraps.

And this is something that neverendingly fascinates me, a single individual with a single mind capable of that through sheer effort, talent, and acquired skill. A brain so powerful you can treat it like a supercomputer, growing stronger right alongside you. You can process casting skills that cover entire continents and worlds.

Something that, even with all you get from the system, requires effort and isn't as simple as flipping a switch. At least if you want to do it properly.

Where Lissandra reaches that level through her control and talent, I rely more on effort, experience, and my mind's ability to endure it all. So even if I make a mistake, I can adapt to it.

Yes, unfortunately, even I had to gain some actual knowledge. There comes a point where smashing rocks against each other stops being very effective, and I... I studied. Oh yes, I did. And at times I found it fun as I discovered actual applications for the knowledge I have gained.

Now, instead of smashing simple rocks together, I have evolved. It's more like I'm holding two heavy hammers and smashing them against each other instead. Such is the science of inscriptions.

They are incredibly versatile. They can make your skills more powerful, help you activate them faster on a larger scale, and let you leave lasting changes in the material world that wouldn't normally stick around through raw skill alone.

Of course, many of these things could be replaced by just using the inscriptions I store directly in my mind, but that's where my levels are currently falling short. I have to use physical inscribing as a crutch temporarily, until I get better. So you can use mana paint, spread lines across the sky, draw into the air, or carve grooves into surfaces to fill later with either your mana or another conductive material.

That is what Sophie wants to do. She and the rest of Group 4, after many meetings, think that Tariel the Undying was damaged, which is why it lacked the total mana obliterating barrier that the other kaiju have.

Of course, there is a chance Tariel the Undying will be highly resistant to Sophie's mental manipulation, so the inscriptions and other preparations we're making are designed to help with that.

We also plan to intentionally sabotage the efforts to keep it from regenerating just a bit so we can conduct multiple tests. We'll let it regenerate up to ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty percent. After each test, we'll learn more about how Sophie's attempts progress. If it goes well, we will continue burning the body while letting just the head regenerate to see if Sophie can control it.

In the worst case scenario, we won't be able to destroy the newly regenerated head, but there isn't much the monster can do with just a head, or so we think.

We are probably wrong.

There is a chance that Tariel the Undying, damn, that name is cool, will pretend to be under mind control. It could be a tricky little shit that lets Sophie manipulate its mind, only to fight back once it revives fully. However, we are preparing for that too. Tess and Min-Jae are creating huge pillars made of durable local metals, compressing them so they can be put into orbit to be used for an attack, and I will place some orbital lances of my own.

Izzy has started storing her flames, and Maya is busy filling her mana batteries and the like. Dennis and Aaron aren't great at fighting huge enemies since their fighting style is similar to Tacita's, but they can still pull off some wild fuckery with their [Connection].

As our doomsday weapon, we have a sacred machine that we can ram at full force against the monster and detonate if I come up with a way to utilize mana juice.

If everything goes wrong even after all that, we will ditch this place. As a small group, we won't attract the attention of the kaiju, so we can do our own thing and continue our Floor quest some other way.

It would probably sadden me a little. To cause this to the kindred present here, but there is a difference between not being an ass and being stupid. They remain fake, tutorial natives who will disappear once our floor ends, and we should not forget that.

So, why would we want to control Tariel the Undying? The reason is simple: one of the twelve kaiju needs to die for us to complete this floor.

I have seen some of the maps the kindred keep, and it seems that as time passes and there are fewer and fewer cities for the kaiju to attack and destroy, their behavior changes as well. They start moving closer and closer to each other. There are even currently small parts of the world where the kaiju haven't gone for decades, even though there are bigger cities, and instead they are slowly gathering in the area where this floor started.

One of the leading theories is that they are heading here because there is some sort of armory where they can go to recharge or sleep until the population rises again. That theory is interesting because it raises a question like: did apocalyptic destruction like this happen far, far in the past and is fated to repeat?

That option is a positive one, but no one from our group actually believes it. The objective of this quest is to help stop the end of the world.

What I think is going to happen is that in the following weeks or months, the kaiju will gather together and maybe combine into a single super-kaiju, or possibly trigger some world-ending attack. Min-Jae had an idea that it's possible that by destroying cities and eating natives, the kaiju have been charging up and are now done with it.

It is also possible that due to Tariel the Undying slacking off and just lying there, that process took longer because the others had to take his shifts.

It is a lot of "ifs," but that's the current idea. Simply put, one of the kaiju, possibly more, needs to be entirely destroyed so they can't gather together, in hopes that they won't be able to trigger that final whatever-it-is.

Using a kaiju to kill a kaiju has a nice ring to it and sounds like a reliable option to destroy their bones. From testing, it seems like they are very, very difficult to even scratch, but another kaiju might stand a chance.

The quest's objective is to help stop the end of the world, so I bet if we traveled around, we would find groups of survivors, each with their own plan to destroy one of the kaijus. Our objective would be to do side quests to help them finish that plan in time.

Maybe gather 10 apples from a tree, go to the opposite side of the map to wipe out a group of monsters, or guide some extremely slow kindred capable of only walking to some distant part of the map.

Who the hell knows.

Well... probably Tess. She has been flying around to distant cities to try to learn about that, but as trusting as the kindred are, it isn't that fast. That thought brings me back to her and makes me glance at the mirror in my room.

I'm currently wearing a black suit with silver lining and a blue tie. It is a commissioned piece, combining current Megacity trends with a hint of Earth's style.

Group 4's next steps are planned out, more or less. First, I will return to Beyond by using a one day stay token to get some materials or items we have ordered.

After I return, we will all enter thought acceleration, for which Sophie, Maya, and the twins have been making preparations, using my mind as the core. If there are no changes, we will go to a pretty deep level and spend some time training with me taking the lead, since with my mind as the core, mana training will work best. The training arc will end when I consider it done, and our planned tests for controlling Tariel the Undying will start.

But before then...

I hear a knock on my door and fix my clothes one last time before opening it. Tess is waiting outside.

She is wearing a strikingly red dress in a style similar to my suit. Her blonde hair is tied up to reveal the entirety of her neck, and she wears no jewelry at all, letting her natural beauty shine out even more. Annoyingly, she is wearing high heels. Tess was always just a bit taller than me, and this slightly emphasizes it.

Surprisingly, she is also wearing two eyepatches, one over each of her eyes, each in a different style.

Rolling my eyes, I reach out and pull one a bit before letting go so it snaps back against her eye, making her let out a quiet chuckle.

"You can act however you want, I know it amused you," she says as she pulls one eyepatch down while keeping the other covering her left eye. "Ready?"

"Ready," I say, and I place a mark on her.

After that, both of us use the token and appear in Megacity.

My mood changes a little as I control my emotions now that there will be people other than Group 4 around, and I look around. A pulse of my mana washes over the entire city in a way that doesn't trigger its defenses, and I locate Tess. The mark I left on her is nowhere at the level of a Scalar Beacon, but it was inspired by it. A huge overkill, but it helps me train.

I activate my Preeminence eyes and read through the changes they have made to the anti teleportation net over the city, then find my way through to appear right next to Tess. She locks her arm with mine as we begin walking toward the elegantly lit, mansion-like building in the distance. It is night, so all these lights cast shadows and emphasize the beautiful architecture that would otherwise be hidden.

"This is where they will be?" I ask her.

"I got reliable information that they will appear here today. Until then, conceal your mana signature, and please wear this mask. It will hide your identity," she says as she hands me a mask to cover the area around my eyes. I notice the wavelengths on it that are meant to obscure.

The effect isn't that powerful, and anyone approaching Champion level could probably see through it, but interestingly, there is a function on the mask to warn you once that happens and show you who is attempting to do so.

Tess puts on her mask too, hers being red to match her clothes. We step out of the shadows and head toward the building, noticing that almost everyone here is wearing a similar mask.

"So, while we wait for them to arrive for their own execution, do you want to learn how I made the shards I gave you, and make some more?" she asks.

"Go on."

"Gambling."

"I knew it."

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