Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chpater 26

I took flight in the direction of Yarris. Prince Herius was no doubt making the biggest splash in the area, and he had the most B-Grades with him. Probably more by now, considering how fast people leveled up on crusade.

Once I was confident I wasn’t being followed, I changed headings. I circled around back toward Tinsburg, where the rest of my army was waiting. The walls were manned the same as before, and it seemed like nothing had changed for my brief adventure.

I opened up the mystic realm portal again, and my people began piling out. Curious conversation broke out across the city, and I’d given no orders to keep recent events secret, so people were quick to talk.

“We were part of a clandestine secret mission to raid an underground facility! I wasn’t sure what happened, but I think we succeeded!” a young man said.

“Legate Carter is so smart, of course we succeeded! I bet that in a few months we’ll hear about what a deadly blow this was to the cultivator forces!” another replied.

It did my heart good to hear what faith the others had in me. Though it was less fun to realize that I had high expectations to live up to.

I checked in briefly with Cyra, who confirmed things were running well in Tinsburg in my absence. Then, I entered the Sanctum Mystic realm again to get my quest reward.

Quest Completed: Investigate the Eastern Plains

Reward: One damaged Planetary System Hub.

I frowned at the System text. It seemed that I’d already received my reward.

The System probably expected me to repair it. But I knew from experience the System was always watching. Maybe I could get something else out of it.

“Well, that’s disappointing. Guess I’ll just put it in storage or scrap it for parts...” I turned to leave.

New Quest Available: Repair the Planetary System Hub.

Reward: One Legendary Architects treasure chest, containing items relevant to grand works, such as enhancing mystic realms or building System infrastructure.

That was more like it.

So I got to work. Getting all the components to my tower took more time than the actual repairs.

This was one of the rare times I’d seen the whole piece in working order, so reassembling it to its functional state was no big issue. I even plugged it into the System infrastructure I’d built during my last System quest.

The massive pillar seemed to rapidly take over all functionality from the dense node of energy I’d assembled before. The two finished merging over the course of an hour, but I didn’t feel the same massive presence I had back then. This was something only an aethersmith could see.

When all was finished, I had a new pillar that looked a lot like the obelisks in Crownhill, Shadefall, and San Antonio, only this one was quite a bit larger.

Quest Completed!

Generating rewards... adding crusader status bonuses... depositing chest...

My treasure chest popped open on the ground before me. Sakura and Bridget had been working nearby. Myrina must have sensed I was about to open a treasure chest somehow, because all of a sudden she, Sakura, and Bridget all seemed to suddenly materialize out of nowhere just as I hefted the lid. Myrina had practically dragged the two in behind her as she flew into the room and took up a position behind me.

“Treasure! Treasure! Treasure!” Myrina chanted as I opened the chest.

“Here comes the treasure!” I flipped the lid open, revealing a modest pile of items that looked like they’d been hastily thrown together. Myrina jumped forward, grabbing the first thing in the chest.

“Check it out... it’s... a single boot!” Myrina hefted a boot from the box that looked roughly in my size. There was no matching pair for it. I used Analyze on the boot.

Left Realmstrider Boot (Legendary)

The realmstriders of Architects were particularly well suited to stepping beyond ordinary space to reach into pocket and mystic realms, despite not having access to their normal entrance. This boot allows the wearer to set one foot out of mundane reality.

“Just one foot, huh?” I muttered.

This seems like the sort of thing that should be amazing... if I had the full set. With just a single boot, it was much less amazing. But perhaps still worthy of study.

Ancient Architect Cookbook (Legendary)

An ancient list of snacks from a civilization at the greatest heights of power and influence ever known.

I flipped through pictures of fancy snacks and finger foods. I initially thought this was also useless, but was it really? The words had pictures for context, which would make translation efforts far easier. Reluna and I would have a lot more data to work with when I returned to Earth.

But right now, Bridget was eying the ancient cookbook with interest, so I handed it to her.

“I’ll try to translate it later. For now, you’ll just have to work from the images.”

I reached into the box again and came up with a strange metal square.

Extra Job Slot Token (Legendary)

Grants the user the ability to pick up another job. This job may be leveled independently from the first, and may be switched back and forth.

Sakura had the most interest in this token, and for good reason. Out of all of us, she was the only one who hadn’t at least leveled her job to C-Grade. She’d picked up leatherworking back when we’d been hunting monsters and needed equipment, but nowadays, we had plenty of money to simply buy what we needed.

More and more, she’d found herself doing management and administration despite not having a job for that. Her levels were falling behind and she couldn’t make good use of the System-supported job features her competitors could. I figured she could make the best use of the token, so I handed it to her.

"This will be useful. Thank you, Carter." Sakura planted a kiss on my cheek.

The next two items were somewhat combat-related, so I reserved them for Cyra and Myrina, respectively. They’d both been working very hard on this campaign, and Myrina seemed particularly eager for treasure.

Realm-Slashing Sword (Mythic)

This item drains unique mana signatures of the target, dispersing their energies into non-physical dimensions. This loose energy can sometimes attract the attention of extra-dimensional beings or entities.

Realm Essence Flag (Mythic)

This flag draws on extradimensional energies to create a magical barrier in a sphere around the flag. The strength of the barrier depends on the amount of ambient extradimensional energy.

Both items worked on some very peculiar mechanics that would be worth studying. But for now, Myrina and Cyra could put them to use on the battlefield. The two might even synergize if they were used close to one another, and had probably been part of a set once upon a time.

There were several other smaller items, including a whole box full of mana samples from different worlds, which would help dramatically expand the Sanctum mystic realm. But of greatest interest was the gift probably meant for me.

Job Transcendance Token (Divine)

Utilize this item to showcase your full abilities before the System. Your abilities, if sufficient, will allow the System to generate a transcendent job, custom-made based on your talents, with the maximum amount of assistance allowed for standard users.

I took the token and pocketed it. I chatted a bit with my ladies about the prizes and saw no reason to delay improving the mystic realm, so we did that.

The process of using the mana samples was rather straightforward. We merely needed to break the containers while inside a mystic realm. We did so one at a time, and soon I received new notifications about the status of the Sanctum mystic realm.

100 unique mana signatures have been added to the Sanctum Mystic Realm!

Sanctum is transforming from a D-Grade to a C-Grade Mystic realm!

New monsters will spawn based on these newly generated biomes. Spawned monsters may now reach C-Grade.

Fragments are will be randomly integrated. You may reorganize this process through your Realmlord menus.

I left the mystic realm to undergo its scheduled changes for a while, with the plan to check in on it later. For the time being, I was interested in my job upgrade.

My companions returned to their own affairs, leaving me in my workshop to study the Job Transcendence Token before me. As soon as I focused on it, a prompt appeared in my vision.

Would you like to showcase your skills?

I accepted the offer, and my world faded away like I was closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep.

***

When the feeling of drifting away finally faded, I blinked and found myself in an unfamiliar room. It was a bit like the structure I’d just been inside, but with less dust and cobwebs. This place was still in use, but whoever was running it hadn’t the slightest idea how to keep their own equipment running.

Once upon a time, the room had been made of that same durable metal I was familiar with. More recent work had switched out worn out components with wood. What had once been a computer control center was now a strange contraption featuring an odd-looking brain in a vat of liquid, likely serving the same purpose.

On the other systems, I sensed some dark and powerful magic that dealt with souls. I rarely messed with such magic, but examining the enchantments on display gave me a good idea of how they worked. The person whose soul was used to make those control enchantments would be trapped and forced to keep the equipment running indefinitely.

It seemed a massive waste to me when the same thing could be accomplished with much less cruelty by simply using a microprocessor. Or computational engines, as the System called them. But I was becoming increasingly aware that what was commonplace on Earth was rare in the rest of the Arcadia Multiverse. Besides the Architects themselves, I had yet to hear of a civilization that had gone through the industrial revolution, let alone the information age.

I hadn’t expected to be teleported to a testing location, so I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do here. Normally, the System left these sorts of things fairly open-ended for me to discover, but this time, it was surprisingly straightforward with assigning me a task.

Your mission is to repair the data transfer array in this data center to prepare for a large, one-time data transfer to a planetary node.

Time is of the essence, as your presence has already triggered several alarms. You have until the resident A-Grade detects your presence.

Behind me, I saw a circular door secured with heavy metal plates. I recognized it as the kind of metal I couldn’t slip through, even in the shadow realm. I’d be concerned if I had to get out of here the usual way. Luckily, all I had to do was complete my task and the System would send me back.

Atop the door was a buzzing alarm with whirling lights. In my vision nearby, there was a countdown. Currently, it said I had a little less than eight minutes remaining.

Apparently, the System was placing me on a time limit. It was nothing that I hadn’t had to do for quests before though. With a clear goal for this mini-quest, I got to work.

I circled around the room, most of which contained some sort of holographic projection device. I ignored that and went straight to the control panels, which at been horribly maimed.

Components had been replaced with inferior knock-offs. Buttons had been nailed down or shimmed into place without understanding what they did, and more than once I found an electrical connection made by a long-dead mouse that was the only thing keeping a key panel working. Someone had tried to remove it at one point, then probably put it back in place while scratching their heads at the fact that the whole panel went dark when the dead mouse was removed.

I spent nearly a minute fixing all of that. Once I was done with the basics, I could finally unfold space and reach my senses into the equipment to get some real work done. This facility had to have gone centuries without proper maintenance, and it was apparent whoever ran this place now didn’t have the help of an artificer, and definitely not an aethersmith like me.

As I worked, I got the distinct impression that I’d been recruited for free labor. Frank once mentioned he went on a date, and the woman he went out with took him home right after. But instead of what he thought would happen, she recruited him to fix her spotty internet connection. I felt like the System had put me in a similar situation.

The work wasn’t too difficult, but the idea that an A-Grade would come bursting through those doors bothered me. If not for the time limit, this might have been an interesting challenge, though as it was, I was racing against the clock.

Things were going very well right up until I heard footsteps coming this way.

“We can go no further! Only the Vaust family is allowed past these doors. Her ladyship will kill us if we trespass!”

“She’ll kill us if we let an intruder do who knows what in her family’s inner chambers. Break down the door and get us in!” another voice responded.

I glanced at my timer, showing I had nearly five minutes remaining, but I was pretty sure the timer was ticking down faster than one second every second. And when the banging on the door started, I was pretty sure things started going even faster.

There was nothing I could do about either except work even faster than I was before. I did so, stretching my fingers and telekinetic powers to the max. My timer ticked down, and just as I was finishing up, I heard a tremendous racket.

“What’s this warning about? What’s going on?” asked a harsh female voice, no doubt the lady of the Vaust family.

I heard the sound of a door opening, but luck was on my side for once. All the banging on the door had bent the frame enough it wouldn’t open all the way on its own.

That little stroke of luck gave me the time to complete the repairs and fold the newly repaired equipment back into normal space. I hadn’t had time to thoroughly test things, but mana was flowing in the right patterns.

Congratulations on completing your job upgrade quest!

As a bonus objective, initiate a large-scale memory transfer—

Before the next notification finished forming before my eyes, the door burst open and I felt overwhelming power. I felt a moment of confusion while I was unsure what was happening, and then the next thing I knew, I was back in my workshop in my mystic realm.

The job token I’d held in my hands crumpled to dust, and the prompt that had been in my vision before was nowhere to be seen.

You have proven your skill at advanced interdimensional magitech tasks.

Your uniquely enhanced body-soul interface grants you access to unique jobs too powerful for mortal entities.

You may now evolve your job, Aethersmith (Legendary), down one of the following paths:

Celestial Artisan (Divine)

A Celestial Artisan is a master of the natural world. More artists than engineers, they sculpt the natural laws of the world into something beautiful and beyond mortal comprehension. May the stars be your forge and the heavens your anvil.

As a Celestial Artisan, gain greatly enhanced telekinetic abilities and energy control, allowing for a massively enlarged range of control for building massive masterworks of enchantment that span across entire worlds.

Instrument of Creation (Divine)

An Instrument of Creation is a medium for the Kindling to express itself in the physical world. Through you, thoughts and ideas manifest themself into reality. All sapient beings’ ancient dreams and fears will be drawn forth into reality through you.

As an Instrument of Creation, your telekinesis and energy control abilities will be sacrificed for the ability to draw forth ideas into reality, manifesting new matter and energy into assistance from the realm of the Kindling.

Kindling Architect (Divine)

A Kindling Architect exists on the forefront of magic and science. Your mind is your greatest tool, and you can design magitech beyond mortal comprehension.

As a Kindling Architect, your telekinesis and energy control abilities are moderately enhanced. However, you will possess a massively enhanced affinity for sharing simplified or subcomponent designs with others.

Your power lies not just in your own ability to create, but in your gift for recruiting others to craft alongside you. At your direction, even non-enchanters may find themselves able to understand and create basic subcomponents, and those more skilled will be proportionally enhanced by the instructions you provide.

I went through the three options before me. Celestial Artisan seemed useful if I wanted to build magical defenses that could turn Crownhill into an impregnable fortress. Maybe I could even build a magical defense platform that would protect the entire new planet we were on when the integration was finished.

It was certainly an option, and I liked it more than Instrument of Creation. While arguably the most powerful of the three, Instrument of Creation wouldn’t let me know what I was creating until I’d already finished doing the creating. While an Instrument of Creation would no doubt create wonders others would be awed by, it didn’t feel like me. Especially if some of those wondrous creations turned out to be harmful.

No, once I finished reading through my options, I knew Kindling Architect was my only upgrade. While not strictly as powerful as the other choices, I knew from firsthand experience how powerful recruiting underlings could be. Even now, I had hundreds of enchanters working for me across a half dozen worlds. Someday, that would probably be thousands.

Already, my enchantment designs had outpaced their ability to keep up. More and more, I was slowing down to pull more of the pieces together myself. Recently, I’d even been smelting alloys by hand to fit the requirements I needed for B-Grade Doomblade armor.

But what if I had more help? How much more time would I be able to spend creating instead of focusing on subcomponents? While Kindling Architect was the least powerful in absolute terms, with the right people at my side it could be scaled to be more powerful than either of the other jobs.

“System, make me a Kindling Architect.”


<Note>
I figured it's been a while since the last bonus chapter, so here you guys go! Happy Valentine's Day Weekend?