“Mr. Rory?”

  Rory glanced up from where he was seated within the forge, grinding something down on a spinning grindstone. “Yes?”

  “Mr. Apostolos wanted me to deliver a message.”

  “Did he now?” Rory paused what he was doing as he examined Violet. In the few months since she’d prematurely achieved her first tier and pseudo-ascension, she’d advanced far faster than any of the other children. In fairness, half of the kids still didn’t have a tier, but of the three others who did- Irene, Greg, and Mariah- Violet was in the lead by a rather large margin, closing in on tier four. It helped that she was the only one of the four actively out hunting monsters -Apostolos’s direct understudy- and thus, it was far faster than the relatively passive direction the other three had taken.

  “Yeah, uh, so, two things. First, he wanted to see if you were finally done with his winnings.”

  Rory scowled. He owed Apostolos an item of his specified designation due to losing a bet with the younger man over when Mariah would reach A1.

  “I was just working on the finishing touches,” Rory said. “But he wouldn’t have sent you to find me for that alone. What’s the real situation?”

  “Uhm, so we were hunting on the second floor of the Maw-”

  Rory nodded along; it was the easiest to reach hunting ground for monsters of decent tier, at least for Violet. With the addition of the Sovereign System, he’d discovered he could even tweak things about their two owned floors of the Maw, such as designating a few spots as places for monsters to ‘spawn.’ They didn’t seem to spawn in the video game sense, but how else they got there was beyond Rory, something only Eon or Aelia were privy to.

  “-when Apostolos said he caught a whiff of something. We entered the teleport room when he suddenly told me to deliver these two messages to you and that he would appreciate if you’d deliver his prize to him in the Maw.”

  That’s some obvious code for ‘We’ve got a situation that only you and I should be aware of.’

  “How, uh, rushed did he seem?” Rory asked, keeping his face even.

  “He seemed fine to me?”

  It's important but not an emergency; I got it.

  Dusting himself off, Rory turned his back to Mariah as he sighed once.

  “Well, I’ll be there shortly. I’m just going to finish this, then I’ll head over.”

  “So, what’s the problem?” Rory questioned as he appeared on the teleportation platform hovering above the third floor of the Maw.

  “Took you long enough,” Apostolos said, ignoring the question as he raised his eyebrows at Rory.

  “Yeah, because I was finishing this up. Here, catch.” Not waiting for Apostolos to ready himself, Rory tossed something through the air to Apostolos, who caught them without trouble.

  “Nice,” Apostolos grinned as he looked down at the small box. Opening it, he pulled out a pair of gauntlets, inspecting them before nodding. “That’s some good work.”

  “Yeah, because I only do good work.” Rory rolled his eyes at the younger man.

  As the reward for winning the bet, Apostolos had explicitly asked for a pair of gauntlets to ‘make dealing with magic-resistant monsters easier.’

  The first gauntlet had been made of a mix of Stellarite, Solarite, and high-grade Stabilzied Steel. Runes could be seen etched into the metal, and from the few that Apostolos could understand, he got a general idea of ‘Form’ and ‘Shape.’

  “If you’re wondering, that first gauntlet there can take your solar magic and turn it into physical attacks. A sunlight arrow will become a physical arrow of sunlight, as contradictory as that sounds. Now, it will take a rather steep amount of Pneuma in comparison. Also, once given physical form, it's no longer malleable to freeform manipulation, but it should allow you to create attacks of crystallized sunlight.”

  “Did you take inspiration from your projection?”

  “That and good ole Einstein’s E=MC squared.”

  “That’s that one Earth scientist dude, right?”

  “Glad you didn’t forget that bit of history,” Rory said, recalling when he’d explained a few notable figures from Earth's history to Apostolos.

  “Alright, so the second gauntlet?”

  “You didn’t examine it already?”

  “I wanted the surprise.”

  “Course you did,” Rory snorted. “The second gauntlet has an Akashic Record rather than any Inscription work.”

  “Have you finally figured out how to force an Akashic Record?”

  “No, but when you throw enough high-potency ingredients together with a certain image and intent in mind, you can gamble that it has relative odds of rolling an Akashic Record.”

  “And if it didn’t?”

  “I would have just added an Inscription to the finalized product. Sure, Inscriptions don’t take too well to an already completed item, but it would still have worked, albeit with lesser efficiency. But that’s not the point, as it did roll a Record.”

  “And as for what this Record does?”

  “Memories of Sunlight,” Rory said, folding his arms one over the other. “It's an effect that ‘stores’ the memory of sunlight.”

  “That explained exactly nothing,” Apostolos said with a frown.

  “While wearing that gauntlet specifically, if you practice a certain move or whatever in direct sunlight, the ‘memory’ will be etched into the gauntlet. The more you practice it, the stronger the sunlight's memory etching. Then, once you use that same ‘move’ in an actual fight, it will strike with a small fraction of the power of each time you practiced that same move.”

  “And in layman's terms?”

  “Throw the exact same punch ten thousand times while in the sunlight. When you throw that punch for real against an enemy, it will hit with a small percent of each one of those practiced punches.”

  “That seems pretty damn powerful,” Apostolos said, whistling.

  “I’d imagine so, but for now, it's a null record, as you need to spend a lot of time building it up first.”

  Apostolos nodded, unsurprised, before he frowned a moment later. “Hey, wait a second. I thought you couldn’t get a Record and an Inscription to work on the same item. So, how’d you manage this?”

  “It’s a quasi-paired item. As they don’t directly interface, the two competing effects don’t interrupt one another. The downside is that each gauntlet can only hold one socketed Gem instead of the normal two that an item of their rank would typically allocate.”

  Turning them over, Apostolos noted the single gem socket available per gauntlet.

  “Oh, and here.” Rory tossed over a small bag, which Apostolos snatched out of the air. “Just a few gems you can mess around with and see which effects you prefer. You’ve got the standard Barrier Gems for making punching through armor easier, a Room Gem to hopefully make shaping freeform sunlight magic into a physical object easier, and an Anchor Gem, which should ideally make any sunlight magic turned physical that much more real. And before you say anything, yes, they’re all low-grade gems. Between working with Mariah on discovering alchemical brews, preparing the walls for next month, and other general activities, I didn’t have the time or patience to whip up anything higher quality than those.”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “I guess that’s fair,” Apostolos said with a mock tone of resignation. “After all, you’re still the only one who can make Gems here.”

  “Yeah, I fucking know,” Rory grunted. With only Apostolos around to hear his thoughts, Rory didn’t bother holding anything back. “I appreciate the kids having goals of their own, but dear god, I would like not to be the only one capable of working on any of the more advanced stuff.”

  “They’ll get there,” Apostolos said with a weak smile.

  “Gil is the only one who seems determined to walk the path of forging. Greg is continuing his chef work, as is Irene, regarding being a city planner. Violet is following your martial path, and it seems like Manda and Marcie intend to do the same. Mariah is working diligently on being an alchemist, which, while useful, isn’t directly applicable to the stuff we need. John is probably still well over a year away from being eligible for a real tier. I approve of having their specific dreams, but I would like to have some trained redundancy for Inscription work and Gem Crafting, more so Inscription work for now.”

  “Eventually, you’ll get more help,” Apostolos said.

  “I hope so,” Rory sighed. “But anyway, why did you need me here?”

  “I caught a whiff of something down there,” Apostolos answered, his face taking a serious edge. “A certain familiar Bane.”

  “Ahh, shit. I knew it was likely on the third floor, but I hoped it was far in. For you to have noticed its presence meant it must have been damn near close to the chute.”

  “That was my thought,” Apostolos nodded. “Which is why I’m planning to leave for roughly two weeks or so.”

  “Cutting it a little close with the Siege Wave almost upon us. None of the kids are high enough tier to be of any direct help. If you don’t make it back in time, it’s just me and Eia for this wave.”

  “I get that,” Apostolos said. “But, do you really want to have no eyes on what’s going on down there? It will only be a few years before it's ‘allowed’ to attack again; who knows what it will hit us with next time. Or, better yet, what if we could be the ones to go on the offensive for once? I need to set out before the trail goes cold.”

  “Hmmm….” Rory went silent, thinking about the situation. “Fine, you have a point.”

  “Also, the state of the settlement is far better than last time; these aren’t walls that were only barely constructed in time without any sort of- wait, what?”

  “I said you have a point,” Rory grunted. “While the thought of facing a wave down without you around doesn’t sound fantastic, it doesn’t sound impossible, either. You said it: with another year of work on those walls and without the influence of the Architect Bane, the wave should be manageable with just Eia and me. She’s nearing tier-six, and honestly, at that rate, it won’t be long until she’s the strongest thing in the settlement.”

  Eia -given that she was a monster- didn’t spend time working on any crafting or vocations. Instead, she spent nearly all her time hunting and consuming other monsters, rapidly growing stronger to the point where, even as a tier-five, she was already as strong as some weaker tier-six monsters.

  But that’s how monsters work, growing stronger constantly versus in bursts like us.

  “So… I’ve got your blessing?” Apostolos said, uncertain.

  “Yeah. I want you to get an idea of what’s going on down there. Between your scythe, your abilities, and these new gauntlets, I feel that you should be able to handle anything less than a high-tier-six on your own, or at least well enough to run away. In the worst-case scenario, you die and respawn back home, at which point we’ll have learned some valuable information.”

  “Huh. Honestly, I thought you’d be more reluctant to the idea.”

  “You’re not a kid anymore,” Rory said with a shrug. “You may not look like an actual adult, but you’re not a kid anymore. I trust in your abilities. Hell, unless we’re sparring within the settlement range, you’re probably stronger than me in a one-on-one fight; you’d likely win six out of ten times.”

  “If you’re going to talk me up, you can probably do better than only giving me six out of ten fights,” Apostolos said with a snort.

  “Ehh, I’m not going to sell myself that short. I’ve got my own bag of tricks, after all.”

  “Speaking of which,” Apostolos paused, glancing around as if there was anyone else to overhear him. “Have you made progress with… that?”

  “Why so secretive?” Rory laughed, shaking his head. “But no. I haven’t been able to use all three skills together since the fight with the Architect Bane.”

  Nearly a year ago, at the end of the battle against the Architect’s Bane, he’d somehow used Ghost Image, Architect’s Reality, and Architect’s Essence Inscription, allowing him to channel his affinities through the projected image, further empowering it. Aside from mundane practice with projection -something he’d gotten far better at since he’d first begun testing the idea- it was the next feasible way he could see to improve the quasi-skill.

  “Oh. I was thinking that maybe you’d had some breakthrough recently.”

  “Nope, same as usual. The only breakthrough I’ve had is the number of ‘stored’ images within my Mind Palace. I’m up to five that can be swapped freely between.”

  “Knives, scythe, and what else?”

  “I actually scrapped the scythe image.” Rory corrected. “I realized it's easier for me to store an image of a spear instead, as there isn’t a reason to project a scythe over a spear. It's not like I’m better with a scythe than a spear; all it does is take longer to project.”

  “Fair enough.” Apostolos conceded. “So knives, spear, and…?”

  “Bullets, bola, and wire,” Rory answered instantly. “Bullets have less explosive power than my launched knives, given they’re smaller and thus packed with less Pneuma, but they have more physical punching power, and the upside to taking less Pneuma is they’re faster to project and easier to use without taxing me nearly as quickly. Bola because it’s a relatively easy image to store and works well for entrapping something, and wire for a similar reason. Until my next ascension, when I can increase my Cognition again, I’m capped at five from what I’ve seen.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I start to bleed from my eyes, ears, and nose when I try to store a sixth image; it's simply too much for my current brainpower to handle constantly reserving.”

  “Ahh, that’s, uh, a good reason not to.” Apostolos half-chuckled, never failing to be amazed at how nonchalant his former master could be about such things.

  “Mhmm,” Rory agreed as he shook his head. “And worst case scenario, if shit starts getting hairy, I’ve got my ring.”

  Lifting his hand, Rory displayed the black ring on his index finger, rolling his fingers a few times for good effect. “Using the ring, I can unleash some devastating covering fire.”

  For good measure, Rory pointed his hand into the shape of a finger gun before unleashing a salvo of bullets that appeared like a cross between a screw and a rifle round.

  “Maybe not the firepower you’d need for a sturdy tier-six, but level fifty-one or level fifty-two monsters? Easy. Sustained with the settlement reserves? Easier.”

  “If you say so.”

  Standing around, the two were silent for several seconds before Apostolos silently exhaled, shaking his head.

  “I don’t know why, but… it feels different,” Apostolos muttered.

  “Probably because it's your first extended absence from home. Normally, it’s never been more than two or three days you’re away from camp. This will be your first time being gone for more than a week. I felt something like that when I first went to college.”

  “The school for adults?”

  “Basically,” Rory said, waving off re-explaining the concept of college.

  “Any advice?” Apostolos questioned, looking at Rory hopefully.

  “Well, the only thing you can do.”

  “Which is?”

  “Dive in with both feet.” Taking a step back, Rory suddenly shoved Apostolos off the platform. Falling quickly, the last thing Rory saw of the younger man was him flipping the bird.

  You’ll thank me later.

  Alone, Rory sat on the platform's edge, opening his Sovereign interface out of habit more than anything else. Nothing much had changed since the day he’d selected the Perks and Decrees that would pave a path for the Ehkorrus into the future. The only real changes had been in the value of the Fabricate Material, now readily drawn from to reinforce their outer walls now that he had finished building scaffolding over the walls, the entire thing looking like some giant skeletal carcass of a world serpent.

  Not much else to do.

  With the improvements to the walls, the repaired defensive constructs, the addition of more defensive constructs, and the nearly completed Inscriptions covering the entirety of their walls, they were about as ready as they could be. Once they beat the next wave -knowing that the Architect’s Bane was lurking within the third floor reassured him that his assumption this upcoming Siege Wave would be easier even if the average monster level increased slightly- he intended to use half of the energy, he planned to use it to ‘summon’ more people, assuming Eon was willing to handle the bulk of the energy requirement again.

  I really would like another adult around.

  There was the strange paradigm that the teenagers might find listening to an adult difficult if the adults were lower tier than they were, but that was a problem for Future Rory to handle.

  Also, when have teenagers listened to their elders anyway?

  Chuckling briefly at the thought, it petered out as Rory thought further ahead.

  Then?

  With another batch of newcomers, Rory hoped he could find at least one or two that looked willing to become either a Gem Crafter or an Inscriptionist.

  Inscriptionist? Inscription writer? Artist? Never put much thought into the official designation for someone focused on inscriptions. Ehh, I guess Eon can handle that once they gain a Vocation.

  Regardless, if Rory could train one or two to take on the roles of Inscriptionist and Gem Crafter, he’d finally be freed from the hassle of being the only one who could handle such things, no matter how ‘basic’ they were.

  I’ll probably have to make some tools to help them start; without my specific advantages or the benefit of higher-tier attributes, something like Gem Crafting is impossible.

  As for the other few settlers, they could… well, in truth, Rory didn’t care much what they chose to do. Whatever vocations or professions new settlers would take the mantle of, as long as he was freed from handling all the day-to-day busy work of being the only one skilled at Inscription or Gem Crafting, Rory would be satisfied.

  “You know, I might be getting ahead of myself,” Rory said, speaking out loud. “I mean, first, we’ve got to beat the wave, and then I have to hope that Eon will let me summon people. But hey, Eon, you’re the one who gave me the Sovereign System, so that’s on you. You hear me?”

  Rory was silent for several seconds, but unsurprisingly, nothing happened.

  Yeah, yeah, playing all high and mighty. That might impress others, but not me!

  Teleporting to the surface, Rory stretched his arms overhead before beginning his walk back to Ehkorrus.

  I can’t wait for the day I figure out how to teleport directly back.