Chapter 6 Part 1 of 3 (Patreon)

Erik put down the papers he was reading and rubbed his eyes.

“Have you slept since you got back?” Momma Rodriguez asked as she wiped down her sink.

“You know you could use a spell for that.”

“I’m not afraid of the work. And you are avoiding the question?”

Rugrat walked in the room. “I’m heading off to the workshop, going to work on the new weapon plans.”

“Good luck.” Erik said

“Thanks. Bye, Momma.” Rugrat kissed her on the cheek.

“If you see Racquel, invite her for dinner, but tell me a day ahead!” Momma said as Rugrat paused with the door half open.

Rugrat looked back into the kitchen. “What day is it today?”

“Tuesday?” Erik shrugged.

“Wednesday,” Momma huffed.

“Huh,” Rugrat said.

Erik shrugged again.

“I’ll let her know if I see her. Bye.” He closed the door as Erik picked up the papers.

“Go and sleep. Haven’t your notifications driven you crazy by now?” She batted him with her drying towel lightly.

“Fine, fine I’ll take a nap,” Erik said.

“Good.”

He cleared his papers up and went through the living room to the main stairs and up to his room. Damn notifications are blinking like mad too.

He let out a big breath. He was moaning about notifications when so many others…

He paused, his face falling.

“Fuck.” He shook his head and accessed the notifications as he kept walking up the stairs.

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Skill: Riding

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Level: 72 (Journeyman)

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Melee attacks while riding are 10% stronger

Rider’s strength increases by 5% when fighting atop their mount

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Erik saw Gilly’s broken body, heard her last breaths. It burned inside him, having felt her happiness. She had saved her master—saved him.

She—

He closed his eyes and grabbed the bannister. He worked his jaw and let out a breath through his nose, pulling himself up the stairs.

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Skill: Hand-to-Hand

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Level: 68 (Journeyman)

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Attacks cost 20% less Stamina. Agility is increased by 10%.

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He saw the woman of lightning and man of mana and remembered the pain he felt; his lost limbs as they destroyed his body as if it were nothing more than rotten wood.

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Skill: Marksman

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Level: 89 (Expert)

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Long-range weapons are familiar in your hands. When aiming, you can zoom in x2.0. 15% increased chance for a critical hit. When aiming your agility increases by 20%

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Tracking his tracers through the sky, hitting aerial beasts and riders and watching them drop from the sky. The charge through the walls, the coming night as streams of tracers cut through the sky. Shooting through the hallway, not knowing if there would be a way out, or if this would be his last stand.

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Skill: Healer

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Level: 95 (Expert)

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You are an expert on the human body and the arts of repairing it. Healing spells now cost 10% less Mana and Stamina. Patient’s stamina is used an additional 15% less.

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He opened his bedroom door, seeing torn flesh and broken bodies. A myriad of wounds, fighting the reaper for his bounty. The faces belonged to those that had been claimed. The yells of pain as he worked. The sheer spirit breaking numbers.

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You have reached Level 77

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When you sleep next, you will be able to increase your attributes by: 65 points.

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50,345,267/547,148,000 EXP till you reach Level 78

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Erik shuddered at the sheer weight of power contained within his body. He closed his door and moved to his bed.

“Damn, feels like I’ll pop.” Erik laid down on his bed and quickly took out a sleeping aid.

He sniffed it, making his eyes swim but it didn’t work.

He took two big snorts, and then another before he slumped.

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You have 65 attribute points to use.

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Name: Erik West

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Level: 66

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Race: Human-?

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Titles:

From the Grave II

Blessed By Mana

Dungeon Master V

Reverse Alchemist

Poison Body

Fire Body

City Lord III

Earth Soul

Mana Reborn

Metal Mind, Metal Body

Mortal Bloodline

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Strength: (Base 90) +53

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1501

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Agility: (Base 83) +80

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937

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Stamina: (Base 93) +30

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1937

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Mana: (Base 37) +94

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1375

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Mana Regeneration (Base 40) +61

51.50/s

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Stamina Regeneration: (Base 142) +59

41.20/s

==========

Agility and mana, up against the Black Phoenix Clan we had to rely on our weapons and I need the high agility to be faster; to heal people, the extra mana. His thoughts travelled to the power the woman and man had displayed even with thirty to forty percent of their strength stripped away.

With mana I can cast larger spells, like the one Egbert cast, and I can take on more of the power of mana through my body as a dungeon lord.

Erik looked at his points again.

Sixty-five. That’s no small amount; forty to mana and twenty five to agility.

He looked at the changes and confirmed.

==========

Name: Erik West

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Level: 77

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Race: Human-?

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Titles:

From the Grave II

Blessed By Mana

Dungeon Master V

Reverse Alchemist

Poison Body

Fire Body

City Lord III

Earth Soul

Mana Reborn

Metal Mind, Metal Body

Mortal Bloodline

==========

Strength: (Base 90) +53

==========

1501

==========

Agility: (Base 83) +105

==========

1081

==========

Stamina: (Base 93) +30

==========

1937

==========

Mana: (Base 37) +134

==========

1795

==========

Mana Regeneration (Base 40) +61

51.50/s

==========

Stamina Regeneration: (Base 142) +59

41.20/s

==========

Blissful darkness took him.

***

Sparks of red-hot metal and mana sprayed around Rugrat’s hammer. The simple looking hammer had elemental lines of mana running through its handle and up through its head.

Rugrat inspected the sword he was repairing. Mana infusion would help with the instability in the metal. He cast Scan, it spread out from his body, through the hammer, through the sword, the anvil, floor, ceiling, surrounding tables, raw materials, blueprints, and furnace.

Mana spread through the sword like veins. He saw the heat that was dissipating and the layers of different materials bound together.

Rugrat turned the sword, using a spell the reddened iron spread down the blade, powered with his mana.

Rugrat fell into the calming continuity of work. The labor didn’t tire him anymore, not with his stats. But it kept him mentally engaged as he finished with the sword. Another spell appeared around the blade, drawing out the heat of the reddened area, his mana guiding the heat into the furnace.

“Good as new. Maybe even a bit better than it was before. Mana distribution should be better, easier to cast spells on or through the blade.” Rugrat checked the blade one more time before holstering his hammer on his belt and walking out of his workshop.

“Shit, bit chilly on the cheeks!”

He adjusted his shorts walking through the smithy workshops. Some were closed off, but there were large instructional areas that were open to passersby as people toiled away.

Racks of weapons were lined out in the hall. Rugrat slowed to watch as an apprentice walked over to the ‘in’ racks filled with different weapons, she grabbed a spear, turning it over in her hands.

She went to a ‘broken’ bin, grabbing some broken blades or cast-off metals. She compared the metal of the spear and the metals in the bin. Finding the best match, she went back into the workshop, taking the materials to a Journeyman smith who checked the items before he threw them into the furnace and started to heat them up, using different enhancers.

Expert and high Journeyman smiths walked around offering help and assisting as needed. There were hundreds of smiths, turning the smithy into a small repair factory as broken weapons went into their forges and new weapons were put on the ‘out’ rack to be sent back to soldiers or re-issued to new ones.

Rugrat put down the finished blade. He detected a flare of mana in a furnace. A barrier appeared around the furnace, containing the flames as Rugrat grabbed the smith and his assistant, pulling them out of the way.

Formations in the ceiling drew the flames upward, draining the energy as the formation of the furnace was shut off.

Green flames blazed in the furnace like some demon.

George, who had been lazing on his shoulder, opened his eyes and jumped off his shoulder.

“George!” Rugrat admonished as the wolf dove through the mana barrier and into the furnace.

Rushing air filled the area as the green flames running up against the barrier were drawn backwards.

What are you doing?

“Dude, that’s just weird,” Rugrat said.

“What is?” Taran asked, walking up beside him.

“George is…, eating the flames? Sounds like a Dragon Force song. How you doing, man?”

“Second accident this morning. People are throwing themselves into work to dull their minds to the pain.” Taran shrugged. “At least you were here to help them.”

Rugrat grunted. “They just want to try and think that everything will go back to normal. Keep working on something, living their lives as they did in the past. You know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Taran rubbed his head and paused, closing his eyes and shuddered.

“Still going with the booty shorts, I see.”

“Yes, I had to get a special run done by Zhou Heng.” Rugrat adjusted his goggles and rubbed the lines they left under his eyes. “How’s Julilah?”

“Back at work. She and Qin are inseparable again. They’ve thrown themselves into working on anything that will increase the power of their gear. They learned about the armor hangover and they’re trying to do something to mitigate the effects. They’re taking a look at their formations, in the stacks or the modular formations.”

“I hear that they’re working on the rail gun weaponry too?” Taran asked.

“Yeah, they’ve been tinkering with the formation sockets on the weapon. All the formation crafters have been working like crazy. It’s impressive how they’ve broken down everything and then started to rebuild it. They’re coming up with some crazy formations and even updating the formations throughout the dungeon.”

“Now that Egbert has his memories back, he has all of the information on the formations. The missing gaps are being filled in. Are you working on anything?”

“Uh, a little something.”

“Why does that make me hear screaming eagles and explosions?” Taran asked.

“Come with me.” Rugrat waved for Taran to follow him and checked on George who had sucked in the remaining flames. “Might be an idea to ask them what that ingredient was, makes one hell of a powerful flame.”

George flew over to Rugrat and landed next to him, growing to the size of a dog, among his reds and blues there were faint green sparks now.

“Going to need something that hot?”

“I might.” Rugrat shrugged, and led the way back to his workshop. Taran closed the door and Rugrat pulled a blueprint out from under parts.

“What is that?”

“That is fire superiority,” Rugrat said. “It looks like a bastardized russian PPSH or tommy gun with a drum mag, mixed with a gatling gun. I know. Basically I made a man portable gatling gun. Each barrel uses railgun formations. Each round has basically a starter charge, enough to give it some acceleration, from the drum into the barrel which accelerates it hard.”

“Heat?”

“Smaller charge means less heat. But the Sabot sheath will use new enhanced materials to gather heat. Basically, it will drain heat as it goes down the barrel; then as it splits from the sabot, the sabot is good to go.”

“How many formations do you have on this?”

“Well, you know the main thing is, one formation, one piece of metal, right?”

“Too many formations and you’ll just melt the sucker, if you’re lucky.” Taran nodded, studying the plans.

“So, we have a rotating drive formation that runs from the back plate through the drum and barrels to the front, it turns the whole thing. The barrels are the same as the ones we’ve been using in the railgun, but arranged in a group of eight with a band around them, covered in heat draining formations; along with a rail under and above to hold scopes. Back plate will have a gelatin-like mix to take the impacts. I’m going to talk to the chefs and alchemists about that; springs will be under so much strain that they won’t be able to handle it.”

“Mounted?”

“Yeah, primarily for mounted positions.” Rugrat pulled out another plan.

“On the left side we’ve got a feed, spent casings are spit out of the bottom. If you crank on the foregrip then it works like a shotgun; pulls the drum and assembly forward and forcefully rotates and ejects your rounds, slam it forward and you’re locked back in. Thought about having it just turn the drum. But you want to clear those stoppages as soon as possible.”

“What is this?” Taran pointed to the ring sticking up from where the ammunition feeder connected.

“A storage device.”

“We can’t use storage devices unless we’re touching them,” Taran said.

“Uhh, well, kind of?” Rugrat moved to another work bench. George jumped up next to the furnace and laid down, basking in the heat.

On the workbench, there was a muddy brown line that had been carved into the wood creating a channel to a storage ring.

Rugrat put his finger on one side of the ring and flowers popped out of the storage ring while he wasn’t touching it.

He caught the flowers as Taran looked closely at the stained wood.