Invent ~ 29!

Joe looked upward, seeing his glowing barrier rituals far above him. He had only gone down about fifty feet this time, not wanting to destabilize his work above, nor get too far away from the scant protections that he had put in place.

Once he was able to get his new building up, a lot of this would be automated, and he was very much so looking forward to that. However, even though his building was going to be a glorified open-top dumpster, the blueprints labeled it as a Unique structure. A large portion of the resources were so that the ‘building’ would be able to maintain a permanent array, but the other reason was that it was built like a bank vault.

Joe had requested very specific dimensions, both for the building as well as the walls. There was a large opening up top, but once he was done with his work, nothing living or undead should be able to enter the building through that space without extreme effort. Each wall was extremely durable, and the design itself was a perfectly symmetrical nonagon. With this, even if it sunk to the bottom of the dump, it should be able to withstand any damage, be able to work in any position, and ignore high pressure.

All he needed to do was gather the materials and put in the work, then he might never have to do something like this again. Joe was very much so over being thrown into the dump, or coming here himself just to search for the materials that he needed. “Oh, I could have just bought what I needed? That would have been so nice and easy, wouldn't it have, Havoc? What's that? You got upset that I didn't have enough materials on hand to build a whole city in one go and threw me in here after knocking me out? How strange!”

Grumbling aside, he was pleased to finally have the time he needed to start generating aspects regularly and consistently. It was also very satisfying to see the numbers tick upward over time.

Class quest complete: Beginner Rituarchitect. Reward: +3 to Architectural Lore skill!

Class Quest gained: Apprentice Rituarchitect. You have the material; you have the know-how! All you need to do now is find ways to practice your craft! Research each of the materials you need to collect to build five Uncommon structures, as well as the different methods you’ll need to use to build them! Research percentage: 0%.

Architectural Lore (Student I). Congratulations! Any building you personally work to design will require 5% fewer resources for you to build!

As a reward for reaching the Student rank with a Lore skill, you get the satisfaction of knowing that you are an overachiever!

“Well, unfortunately both of those rewards are kind of useless to me right now, and it looks like I missed out on the bonus quests for speedrunning, abyss it. I knew I shouldn’t have waited.” Joe looked at his aspects and decided that he had enough to do the initial construction work. He started climbing out of the pit he had created, watching for sharp objects that could somehow penetrate his Exquisite Shell. “I don't even have an architect skill, it's kind of hard to design a building without knowing how to do it. I just build them… but now I guess I should probably look into figuring out how to design them as well?”

Class quest gained!

Class quest: Novice Reductionist. You are a powerful, third-specialization individual. You must have power, influence, and resources to get to this point. Now you need to have a way to turn those resources into more resources. Create a Trash rank permanent array. Reward: 1,000 Damaged aspects. Array created: 0/1.

“Yes! I think I got it; I need to pass the Beginner quest to get the next one? Wait, why didn't it give me the prerequisites this time?” He tried to figure out what the difference was, but eventually gave up in favor of simply being happy that he had gained access to the next set of quests.

Once he was at what passed for ground-level once more, Joe used his Rituarchitect Survey Grid to set out a ghostly version of the building. Then he created four more barriers, each of which would act as a support, or a foundation, as he worked. Preparing the ritual, he devoted as little mana as possible in order to start and continue the process. He was alone down here, and he knew for a fact that this would be an extremely draining process.

“Now comes the dangerous part…” He looked over his status before temporarily dropping his Exquisite Shell, Neutrality Aura, and Retaliation of Shadows so that he could maximize his mana. The Reductionist was immediately assaulted by dozens of tiny debuffs, but nothing that would be life-threatening in the small amount of time he needed to keep them inactive.

Name: Joe ‘Tatum’s Chosen Legend’ Class: Reductionist

Profession I: Arcanologist (Max)

Profession II: Ritualistic Alchemist (1/20)

Profession III: None

Character Level: 21 Exp: 237,109 Exp to next level: 15,891

Rituarchitect Level: 10 Exp: 50,500

Reductionist Level: 2 Exp: 5,186 Exp to next level: 814

Hit Points: 1,898/1,898

Mana: 3,194/6,945

Mana regen: 54.3/sec

Stamina: 1,546/1,546

Stamina regen: 6.48/sec

Characteristic: Raw score

Strength: 148

Dexterity: 148

Constitution: 144

Intelligence (bound): 157

Wisdom: 137

Dark Charisma: 103

Perception: 140

Luck: 83

Karmic Luck: 8

It took thirty-five seconds for his mana to fully recover, and in that time, he wondered why his stats had improved even when he had not seen a notice for them. Specifically, his body stats. Each of them had improved very slightly… “Right! The bonus I got when I got to this plane of existence: Mind over Matter. Ten percent of my mental stats are added to my body. Nice, that means that those are just about to break through the next limit.”

As soon as he was topped off, he began the ritual.

The ritual circles appeared as normal, and the massive drain on his body began. Just as always, he only had eyes for the work that was being done: it was different and amazing to see each time. Aspects roared into the frame of mana that had been created, the standard ones, as well as all of the Special Anima aspects that he had collected—creating a single, glorious dais that simply hung in the air for a few seconds. The dais had dozens of small, modular sections attached to it that could easily hold an inserted Aspect Jar. He was looking forward to seeing those up close very soon.

The floor was created next, starting at the base of the dais and rippling out like the surface of water hit by a raindrop. Each ‘ripple’ increased the thickness of the floor another millimeter, until the solid metal nonagon side was fully in place. From there, the next sides were raised all in one go, moment by moment, as if a massive three-D printer were working at insane speed. Once finished, the ‘ceiling’ was created, leaving a hole large enough that Joe could have driven a truck through it.

If he were being honest with himself, it looked like it belonged here. The ‘building’ was a huge, hollow metal capsule with not a single noticeable purpose. It was a massive, intricate dumpster.

Building created: Anima Supported Prodigal Entrepot Containment Tower. (Unique Building).

Architect of Artifacts has come into effect! All building stats increased by 10%!

Joe felt a deep sense of pride as he looked at the building that he had not only created, but had a major role in designing. This was going to be the linchpin to all his future success if he did it correctly, “Oh, feces, I just remembered that I might not have been able to build here.”

The human grimaced as he thought about the building restriction that he might have run into, a restriction that would have forced him to continue doing everything by hand. This was Dwarven owned territory, and there had been no guarantees that he would be able to make his structure. “Maybe guess the dump is made so that anyone can put stuff down here? I guess I should just be glad that worked out?”

There was no door to the building, but that was perfectly acceptable to him. Crouching down, Joe gathered his strength and jumped straight to the top of the A.S.P.E.C.T. A quick glance at his skill reminded him that he could jump fifteen feet straight up, as his Omnivault skill was based on his raw strength. Peering down into the hollow tube of a tower, Joe selected his landing spot and hopped in. “Okay, now I just need to figure out how to add in a permanent aspect array…”

A moment later, a paperclip with googly eyes appeared in his line of sight and began speaking to him. “Hi there! It looks like you are trying to add an active effect to this building! Would you like some help?”

“I can't… feel my hands.” Blinking rapidly, Joe collapsed and needed to put all of his dwindling attention behind the reactivation of his Neutrality Aura. As he started to heal, his vision stopped tunneling, and the quietly accruing debuffs began vanishing, the mirage went away as well. “Ugh… that would have been great, but I know for a fact that’s outdated, retired technology. Good to know that hallucinations go straight for our deepest desires.”

Health: 219/1,898

Chuckling nervously at his close call, Joe healed himself a few times and soon found the strength to stand back up. There was only a single point of interest in this building: the dais with modular compartments for his jars. An easy decision was made; Joe walked over and put his hand on it. He expected a notification, but even so was surprised by the details that sprang up after claiming the building as his own.

A.S.P.E.C.T. is awaiting a permanent reduction array. To begin the process of creating a permanent array, please select which array layer you would like to begin with. Please note that all values shown are the total number of aspects that will be required to complete that array level. It is highly recommended that you complete them in order, so as to have experience with the creation process.

Trash: 100,000.

Damaged: 10,000.

Common: 5,000.

Uncommon: 1,000.

Rare: 500.

Special: 250 (Rare).

Unique: 250.

Artifact: 100.

Legendary: 25.

Mythical: 5.

A quick mental scan of his codpiece informed Joe that he had already collected nearly eight hundred thousand Trash aspects. Seeing as he had not only an abundance of aspects, but that he should learn how to do this correctly, he chose to begin the creation process for the Trash layer. As soon as he did so, mana slowly began trickling out of him, creating an energetic outline similar to his survey grid that began to swoop and swirl around the entirety of the open-air tower.

He began tracing the closest line with his finger, trying to understand how he was supposed to build up the layer. Joe began musing aloud, “It did tell me that I needed to use aspects with this, should I try my Inscriber? Can only hurt a lot to get it wrong.”

His Trash aspect Inscriber—resembling nothing so much as a basic number two pencil—appeared in his hand. With a simple *swish* of his Inscriber, Joe started tracing along the lines of mana that were in the air and along the ground. As he had hoped, the strange energy stayed in place. This was similar to creating a ritual diagram, but it felt rather strange—he wasn’t used to moving across such a large area to do this kind of work. Just as he got more comfortable with the process, he made a grave mistake: Joe stepped on one of the lines he had already filled with aspects.

All in the same instant, he began to fall over as his foot was vaporized, the filled line snapped like a spiderweb that he had walked through, and the rest of the aspects in the array destabilized. Joe cursed like a sailor even as he frantically dumped mana into his forgotten Exquisite Shell, hoping desperately that he could reactivate it before the flaming energy landed on him.