CC 5 ~ 10!

10

“I don't want to think of this as a punishment.” Joe grinned at the steampunk mad scientist Dwarf. “I see our meeting as a glorious chance to prove myself. I think they knew exactly what they were doing; you don't look like the kind of person who is going to be telling me ‘no’ very much.”

“That’s just it, ya spooky bastard. I won’t stop you, but I’m not gonna help you much either.” Havoc scrutinized Joe for a long moment, the intensity of his gaze the only reason that Joe could tell his eyes were open at all behind the mirrored lenses. “Abyss… I can see it in your eyes. You're going to be trying for nobility, aren't you?”

“Seems like the appropriate plan of action.” Joe smirked at his assigned mentor. “In fact, I already have a plan to-”

“Look, human. I got nobility on my first try. Do you know what I had to do for that?” Havoc took another deep pull of his cigar and let the smoke slowly release from his nose. “I got access to one of the largest assets from a bygone age, a building that allowed me to use forbidden magic at a steep discount. I took the entire six months I was allocated, releasing the results of my research there at the absolute end of the time limit. I made it impossible for anything to grow in a huge swath of land for just shy of a decade, then launched a large-scale offensive the likes of which hasn’t been seen since.”

“That's how I got the lowest Noble title: Major General.” Joe paled as he realized that someone had already done what he was planning. Havoc kept going when Joe remained silent. “I took four major forts and thirty-six minor forts in one fell swoop, making it impossible for the Elves to take it back. Or… so we thought. You think you can do something like that?”

“You cast the Ritual of the Lonely Tree, and they found a way around it?” Joe inquired curiously when it seemed that Havoc was done speaking. “Did it reach the final stage, or did it get interrupted somehow?”

His query was met with silence; a silence that stretched long enough that Joe started to become very uncomfortable. Havoc’s fingers were twitching as though he were trying to decide if he was going to reach for a weapon or call for assistance right away. Finally, he made a decision and simply spoke.

“No… I was not able to cast the ritual. How… no, obviously you have some knowledge that they think… I'm starting to see why they sent you to me, human. No. We did not cast that ritual; we couldn’t make it work. Not without beggaring the Oligarchy. We cast the area spell ‘Salt the Earth’ and released my personal creations to wipe out all life within hundreds of miles. They had been designed based on the intended function of that ritual you mentioned. I don’t mind telling you this… sure, it used to be a national secret, but not so much any longer.”

“Because they found a way around it?” Joe inferred, getting a nod in reply. “How do you counter-spell something that creates a physical object? Doesn't that force a huge amount of salt into the ground? What personal creations did you use, and is that something that I can get access to?”

Havoc was sitting forward now, his grin widening as he found that Joe was someone he could have an actual conversation with. “They made a new type of plant, one that thrives on salt. In fact, it drains all the salt from the area and makes a ‘fruit’ with it. Turns out, all we did was get a three-year respite, then gave them an easy way to stock up on spices and ways to preserve their foodstuffs. Abyss, since they are Elves and the salt becomes plant-based, they can make the ‘fruit’ collect itself. After they harvest enough of the fruits, the ground is able to support normal vegetation again.”

“Well, that… really destroys my original plan.” Joe pulled out a chair without invitation and sat down. “I figured that if I had access to your Grand Ritual Hall, I would be able to put that ritual together and easily step into nobility. I get a discount on rituals, and six months should have been enough time for me to pull it off.”

Havoc chuckled at Joe, then offered him a cigar. Joe declined, instead grabbing a mug and summoning this coffee elemental, Mate. A moment later, a steaming cup of espresso was flowing down Joe's throat. Noting the piercing look that Havoc was giving him, Joe asked Mate to prepare a second cup. They sat in the stillness and relaxed, but eventually, the Major General was the one to break the silence. “It’s not a terrible plan. There are a few flaws, but the ritual itself directly kills the plants in the area, right? The area spell we used only made it so that new things couldn’t grow. That's a pretty significant difference. You set that off near their capital and their most powerful guardian is wiped out. Main issue is going to be surviving putting it out. My research tells me that ritual takes over a week to reach completion.”

“Mind going over one or three of the flaws in my plan? I’d love to find a better way, or maybe you even have some schemes you could share?” Joe wryly grinned at the Dwarf. Havoc nodded and started writing on a paper, creating bullet points and a flowchart. Joe flinched at the sight. “A world and a plane away from humanity, and I still can't get away from PowerPoint…”

“The premise is good.” Havoc flipped the page over so that Joe could see it. “Here’s what I see as the major flaws: You are looking at an upper Master, maybe lower Grandmaster, ritual. I don't know what your skill level is right now, but are you actually confident in casting that level of anything? Next, as I mentioned, the resource cost alone is what stopped us from being able to use this last time. How do you think you could combat that? There aren't enough things that you could grab from us to make it happen. Let alone the Core you would need to power it. Finally, you claim that you could use the Grand Ritual Hall—the existence of which is a national secret that I would love to know how you learned about—but you haven’t shown me any indication that you can control a Legendary building like that.”

“Legendary?” Joe breathed the word with delight. “I was only able to make a modular Artifact-ranked.”

“Should not have said that… maybe I should just wipe his mind and be done with-” Havoc was chastising himself, but paused and looked up with great interest. “Wait. You made an Artifact Ritual Hall? No. Skip that. Give me view access to your status.”

“You understand that I can hear you when we are sitting right across from each other?” Joe looked at the other man with dead eyes, but Havoc didn’t flinch from the stare. “Isn’t giving access to someone else a very bad idea?”

“Just do it,” Havoc grumped, unwilling to concede the point. “I need to know what you can do, in order to help you as best as I can. Also, I don’t care if you can hear me. If I decide that your mind needs to go, there’s nothing you could do about it. We’re in my seat of power. I could take out the entire Legion from here if I only needed to protect myself.”

Joe winced at the realization that he really had no choice but to follow orders. Again. He still hated that feeling. “I thought you weren’t going to stop me, but also had no plans to help me?”

“Then I found out that you weren't a random muscle-for-brains that got dumped in here as punishment. You haven't called me ‘Officer Bro’ a single time, or sent yourself to respawn by trying to slam your head into mine.” Havoc snarled as he thought of the last Legionnaires that he had needed to work with. “Do you want my help, or no? I have no idea how long I’ll want to give it to you, so you should take the opportunity to improve.”

Instead of answering verbally, Joe swiftly shared his status sheet, and Havoc started leafing through it. “Interesting… your cover was a cleric? Abyss, you are the champion of a deity. Don’t use that for anything, or you’re gonna tick me right off. Let’s see… lots of health or healing aspects to your build. Very little in the way of attack spells, and you’re practically useless in physical combat. Ah… there it is.”

“Ritualist, Rituarchitect, and this one, Reductionist. I know what the first and second ones are; can you give me a breakdown on the third? These are very impressive skill levels in the Ritualist tree… you even got a path advancement that made it into multiple passives?” Havoc regarded Joe again and nodded approvingly for the first time. “We can work with this. I think I know a few ways to get you what you’ll need to wipe out Elves efficiently. Now, tell me about that Reductionist class so I don’t need to read your notifications for the next three days.”

“It’s…” Joe hesitated, unsure where to start. “Thing is, I got that class right before I came here. I haven’t actually had a chance to test it out at all, and I have almost no information on it. What I know about the class is that it changed how I will be working with materials going forward, but even that was pretty hard to understand without any practical data or experience.”

“That's fine; let's go give it a test run right now. What do you need?” Havoc stood and marched them out of the room, down an empty hallway, stairs, and eventually directed them into an open warehouse area. Not a single time did Joe see another person, or anything that might represent a personal item, art, or pictures. “Come on. Speak, human! Do you need ink? Something to break down? How do you do things? Burn them? Rot them?”

“Well-” Joe suddenly realized that he didn’t actually know what he was supposed to do to make his class abilities function. He pulled open his notifications and found the class description, hoping that it could give him a better understanding of the next steps. “There was something that came up when I got the class; let me…”

You now have the ability to process all materials down to basic components. All raw materials, processed materials, and items are able to be ‘reduced’. You are able to reduce all materials by using mana alone. There is a ritual now engraved upon your being, a ritual that only requires the empowerment of mana to function.

Any sensory abilities now also inform you of the value of anything that can be reduced, as well as the amount of material you will attain by reducing it.

You can use the reduced material in any form of crafting, as a replacement for all components, ingredients, or other required material.

“According to this, I should just be able to directly touch something, focus on it, maybe even hear it if it is magical, and it will tell me what it is worth?” Joe tried to access his storage so that he could pull out a log, but nothing came. He frowned and tried with another item that he knew he had. Nothing. Before he could start to panic, Havoc handed him a ball of unprocessed ore.

“Looks like you are having performance issues. Please stop grabbing at your crotch. Try this; it’s just iron, and it doesn't matter if it’s destroyed or not.” Havoc waved at Joe to hurry up and get the process started. The Reductionist touched the ball, then let his mind slip into the feel of an Intrusive Scan, feeling his mana dip for a flash; too little to see before regenerating the spent resource.

Item: Iron Ore

Reduction value: 10 Common aspects, 43 Trash aspects.

Reduction cost: 5 mana per second.

Then Joe’s mana just kind of… swirled out of him; and he could see an intricate ritual light up across his body. He went from sporting clear, unblemished skin, to the most tattooed person he had ever seen in his life, all in the span of a moment. “Hope that’s not permanent… a whole career in the military didn’t convince me to get a tattoo; certainly didn't mean to get one accidentally. I wasn’t even drinking!”

The ball of iron ore took five full seconds to completely reduce, and Joe was left with… nothing. No aspects, whatever those were, and thankfully no tattoos, either. He pulled up his status screen and found nothing to indicate that the aspects had been stored. There was nothing on the ground, nothing on him. As his last option, Joe checked his notifications and had to hold himself back from growling.

53 aspects lost! You do not have any external storage devices that can contain aspects, and your bound storage device is full! Either create some space in your bound storage device, or have external devices ready to store aspects!

“What sort of external devices can I use?” Joe whispered darkly at the system, which refused to answer him. “What do you mean my storage device is full? I was able to put an entire warehouse in there, and I never heard a single complaint about lack of space!”

“Hold up a moment…” Havoc looked at Joe askance, his lips pulling his face and wretched beard into a scowl. “What kind of storage device do you have that can hold an entire warehouse?”

“A full one, apparently.” Joe shook his head at the thought and tried to carefully explain the fewest details that Havoc needed to know about his exile. “When I left Midgard, I was able to take anything with me that I could carry. I admit, I have been having some trouble accessing it since I got here, but I figured that had more to do with the Zone than the device… Havoc? What… why are you shaking your head like that?”

“Let me guess… you can't get any individual item out? Even if you know for a fact that it is there?” Havoc took a few steps away, making sure to stand well behind Joe. “How much space was it supposed to have? Don't give me that look; I have no interest in stealing from you. How much space?”

“Thirty cubic meters.” Joe tried again to pull out a weapon, or herb, anything. “You’re right; I can’t get anything out.”

“That's what I thought. Thirty meters, huh? That’s massive for a storage device, but certainly not enough to contain an entire warehouse.” Havoc grinned and shook his head. “Not without… well, you’ll see. Try to take out everything at once, and make sure to be moving backward when you do it. I'd recommend jumping backward, actually, after seeing your jump skill. I want to know the story behind that when we have some more time.”

Joe crouched down, wanting to get this over with, both so that he knew what was going on, and in order to alleviate his nervousness. He jumped backward, ordering the device to eject everything from the spatial codpiece at the same time and drop it on the ground.

*Boom*.

A massive brick appeared in the air in front of Joe, the sheer mass of it slamming it to the ground and shaking the tiled floor where they stood, even breaking it in a few places, if the sounds were anything to go by. Havoc took a step forward and eyeballed the condensed matter.

“Wouldn't you say that looks to be about, oh, three point one-oh-seven meters on each side? Thirty cubic meters on the dot. Yup. Destruction by compression.” Havoc’s words barely reached Joe, who was staring at the cube in horror. The human reached out a hand, hesitating to touch it; hoping that this was just a bad dream. “It's not all bad. You must have a very high-quality spatial device, or else it would have just exploded and crushed you with the brick. Maybe taken out a small town with the backlash of all that mana being released. At least this way you get to keep the container… but this is just a block of broken things, at this point.”