Back again, another chapter, this time with a hefty amount of background spreadsheet work to go with it. Seriously, I had to learn Javascript just to get this chapter out, so if you want someone to blame for it taking so long, go find whoever invented Javascript and blame them because holy crap why would anyone use it over literally any other language out there. Took me like two days just to figure out how to get random numbers that were greater than 1.

Thank you to Robert Waldron, Jesse Garcia, LOLZMAN, Ragy, Dakota, The-Anti-Akuma and Hydrolic for supporting me this month! I'm in the process of shifting house again and y'all are saving my life, you have no idea.

Getting past Argus gate security was surprisingly easy. One look at their assembled group found them being waved on through without so much as an ID check, as clearly the checkpoint security saw that their group had 'Hunters' proverbially written in neon above them.

It was the Atlesian security team behind them that proved to be a more challenging issue.

"Identification and documentation, please," One white-armored soldier asked, holding out his hand palm-up, waiting impatiently for Jaune to comply.

Jaune was going to have to disappoint the soldier. "Is there someone more senior we can talk to? We're Hunters from out of town, and we don't have any identification or documentation on us. We barely made it out of a Lancer nest with our lives."

The soldier's hand retracted as he peered through the helmet's one-way opaque visor at the taller blond and his cohort. "Wait here."

With that curt order, Jaune watched as the armored Atlesian stepped over to another, less-armored woman, clearly an officer of some kind.

He did not return to his post, but the woman stepped over in his place, sizing Jaune and his group up. "Name, for the record?"

"Luteus Arc. My companions are Eis Aster, Aurora Kaleido and Kuro Nightshade."

The lie rolled off his tongue like it was nothing but the truth, and the officer barely blinked an eye at the list of names.

"Where was this… nest of Lancers, you mentioned?" The officer then asked.

Clearly, the woman was looking to confirm the story, or at least get an understanding of the situation.

"Decently far off the coast, an old SDC mine long abandoned. We didn't particularly mean to end up there," Jaune replied, shrugging. "I wouldn't call it a threat to Argus, if that's what you're asking."

"Understood." The officer stopped for a moment, looking between a tablet Scroll and the four. "I'm going to have to ask you to remove your mask, miss."

"I-" Weiss began, momentary panic beginning to build.

Jaune interjected before it could become a bigger problem. "She can't remove her mask."

There was a pause as the officer took that in, frowning. "If she doesn't remove her mask, I can't verify-"

This time it was Weiss that interjected. "I have my Atlas ID, if that helps. It's not my Hunter ID, but would it assuage your issues?"

With a sigh, the officer nodded. "Yes, it would. If you would please…"

Weiss handed Eis Aster's ID over, and the officer studied it. "Eis Aster, eighteen, female, born in Atlas."

The ID was handed back. "Thank you. You will all be granted access to Argus, however, you will be on a list of people of interest until we have another way to completely verify your identities. Have a pleasant stay in Argus."

Jaune nodded, unwilling to spend any more time in front of the scrutinizing gazes of the Atlesian security, quickly moving through the rest of the checkpoint, closely followed by his loosely assembled team.

Once through, all four let out their held breath in sighs of relief, even as a notification that Deceitful Speech had leveled popped up in Jaune's field of view.

He barely paid it attention, dismissing the small box with a single fluid movement, before taking in Argus.

He'd been here before, this was not his first time on the main thoroughfare, and he knew Weiss would have been here before as well, it was hard not to be with the amount of SDC properties and facilities that were located within the city. Ilia he was unsure of, she was still kind of a mystery to Jaune compared to Blake, who he knew had definitely not been here before.

"Interesting names. Where'd you pull those from?" Blake asked, cocking her head to the side somewhat.

Jaune shrugged. "Honestly, I had no idea for you or Ilia, so I just kinda picked 'em outta thin air? Mine was just my great-grandfather's name."

"Nothing wrong with having a fallback identity these days," Ilia pointed out. "Though Aurora's a bit on the nose."

"Says the person who came up with 'Eis Aster', Weiss pointed out.

"Touché."

Unwilling to indulge in any more sarcastic shenanigans this early into the city, Jaune interrupted the conversation. "Let's walk and talk, yeah? I'm trying to remember where to go, and I'm going to be more likely to recognize the streets when I see them."

It was a more unorthodox method of navigation, but it had served Jaune well in the past. Jaune hadn't been to Argus since his eldest sister had gotten engaged, and it had been some time since.

The streets were still the same, though. There was still that same grocery store on the corner of Third and Eastway, still a blacksmith's place down on Fifth, still a community workshop near the hardware store at the end of Sunset.

He led his team around and through the streets, until he reached a house that looked like every other townhouse on the street, colors muted but still varied. It wasn't Atlas's greys, whites, and cyans, but it wasn't some bright monstrosity either, a rich, earthy green with white highlights.

Instead of continuing to delay and admire the paint, Jaune stepped up onto the front doorstep and knocked on the door, fist rapping against white-painted wood.

When the door opened, Jaune couldn't help but let the rueful grin cross his face. "Hey, Saph."

Saphron Cotta-Arc was both elated and furious when her brother showed up on her doorstep out of the blue.

Amid exclamations of 'I just got Mom and Dad out of here!' and 'If you're staying, you're helping', Jaune couldn't remove the grin from his face.

"How've you been?" Jaune asked, as Saphron ushered them all inside without any complaint directed at Weiss, Blake or Ilia. Jaune would be the sole target for them, which he understood completely, and was honestly grateful for.

"Tired. Mom's been helping out with Adrian but he's still… well, he's a toddler, and with Terra working, it's been an interesting experience. Mom's been rubbing it in my face for a while now."

Jaune wasn't exactly used to being an uncle, but he'd at least known he was one. It just hadn't seemed like an important thing to mention during the past few months. Seeing his nephew was on the top of his priority list, family always was, but he had to delay that for a moment, taking Saphron's elbow and taking her aside for a moment.

"You hear the news about Weiss Schnee?" Jaune asked.

She carefully eyed him up, her response measured. "If it was true, you'd be much more distraught, I think. Or angry. Plus considering I'm pretty sure she just walked into my house…"

"It's true, at least, as far as the public knows. We kinda had to fake her death…" He trailed off, nodding to Weiss briefly, who let her guard down and took the mask off her face.

"Every time I see you it's like you've somehow trumped how much trouble you were in since the last time. How do you manage to do it?"

Jaune didn't have an answer to that, so he moved along instead. "Also, that's Ilia, an old friend of Blake's. She's helping us out until she wants to stop, which I'm surprised wasn't back in Atlas."

"You can't get rid of me that easily, as much as I wish I could leave. I owe Blake too much, for one," Ilia remarked. "It's nice to meet a normal Arc, though, I was starting to think that Jaune wasn't the odd one out."

"The only boy in a family of girls? Of course he was going to be the odd one out," Saphron squeezed in between laughs. "Let me grab some drinks, I've got a bit of time before I have to go pick up Adrian from pre-school."

They settled back into chairs, thankful to be off their feet, and bathed in the mirthful atmosphere of Saphron absolutely ridiculing her brother with various stories of their childhood.

Not that Jaune minded that much. System Mind pretty much blocked any true embarrassment he might have felt from some of the tales, and honestly, he had been pretty foolish in his younger years.

Not that he didn't reciprocate by throwing a handful of stories about Saphron into the mix, like the time she'd met Terra. Jaune had always been awkward, but Saph definitely proved that it was a genetic condition on that day.

The conversation also gave him time to consider his itinerary for the foreseeable few days. There were a lot of things he wanted to do, of course, with the first being to track down Pyrrha, who he knew was somewhere in Argus, at least, last he'd heard.

With restoring his team to its former glory being pinned at the top of said list, the second was to look at any skills he'd not touched yet. He knew there were a few, at the least, and there was no telling what might be unlocked by his investigation of them.

Of course, that brought with it a sub-list of skills to look into deeper, such as the first on his list, the Gathering skill that insofar he'd still not touched. Considering how useful it sounded, he was certainly going to have to check it out.

"Jaune?"

The voice of his sister pulled him out of his thoughts, and her questioning look was more than enough to have him sheepishly rubbing at the back of his head, a long dormant habit by now. "Sorry, what?"

"You seem… distracted. You okay?"

He weighed the pros and cons of discussing his semblance in his head before answering. "Yeah, yeah, just… thinking about what comes next. We're not gonna be staying here, no worries there."

Saphron cocked her head to the side. "You know I don't mind that, right?"

Jaune did know that, but it still opened him up to a bunch of questions he really didn't think he could answer. "Yeah, but we can afford to rent a place for a few days. Money's not really an issue."

Saphron's eyes strayed towards Weiss. "I thought the renowned vocalist Weiss Schnee had been tragically killed in a failed hostage situation?"

"Was that how the news put it?" Jaune asked, before shaking that line of thought away with a literal shake of his head. "No, I've got plenty of funds. We've been doing jobs on our way across Remnant, so we've got a team budget for this sort of thing."

"If you're sure, but I'm sure Mom and Dad wouldn't mind putting you up at theirs either. The new place might not be as big as our old place in Domremy but at least it's not swarming with Grimm."

Jaune hoped it would remain that way, too. "No, that's alright. I'll go see them tomorrow, though. Figured we'd just stop by and get off our feet for a bit, get the lay of the land and all that. It was a hell of a trip getting here from Atlas."

"Really? I hadn't heard of any incidents with any passenger aircraft lately. Actually, there hasn't been a transport for at least a few days, and Terra was saying that the next one isn't scheduled to arrive for another week. How did you even get here?"

"We flew in my Bullhead," Jaune answered. "It's a long story. Blake, Ilia and I saved a settlement of faunus over in Menagerie, and then Blake's Dad gave me a Bullhead as a reward."

He paused. "I guess it wasn't as long a story as I thought."

"It is if you don't mention why you were in Menagerie, or how you got there, or why they just had a Bullhead around to give you," Saphron muttered, shaking her head. "What's it like in Menagerie anyway?"

Blake and Ilia answered at the same time. "Hot."

"It's almost like I'm right there," Saphron remarked sarcastically, though not without good humor. She turned her attention back to Jaune for a moment. "If you guys are gonna rent a place, there's a complex on the corner of Mori Crescent a couple streets down that's taking temporary placements. Terra's friend's sister-in-law runs the place, so I can probably get you a floor."

Saphron paused. "How long are you going to be in Argus?"

Jaune shared a glance with his teammates. "No idea yet. We still have to get in contact with Ruby, Nora and Ren, so it could be a few days, a few weeks, or they could already be here. I haven't had a chance yet."

"Well, that makes it a bit more difficult, but I'll square it out. She'll be picking up her daughter anyway, so I'll ask when I go get Adrian, which is… now, actually. Uh, gotta go?"

Jaune watched as Saphron hastily grabbed her coat and departed without another word. "She still hasn't changed. Still easily distracted."

"Like someone else we know," Weiss pointed out. "I wonder who that could be?"

"I don't think Ruby would like you talking about her behind her back," Jaune replied, deliberately missing the point.

"I.. you… shut up, Jaune."

He laughed for a moment before turning more serious, standing from his seat. "No point in wasting time, though. There are things we need to do here, and I'm not the only one who can do them, for a change. Team Leader's orders-"

"I'm technically not a member of your team," Ilia interjected.

"Team Leader's orders," Jaune continued unabated. "Figure out where Pyrrha is, and contact RRYN, if we can. That's… that's about it, actually."

Weiss stood as well, brushing herself off and placing her mask back on her face. "As the only one with an actual ID, I'll handle going to the CCT."

Blake and Ilia joined them in verticality. "We'll go looking around, see what we can find out. Meet back here?"

Jaune nodded at Blake's question. "Send me a message when you're done, and I'll head back. I'm going to go grind some stuff outside the city, so I might be a bit." He paused, before turning to Weiss. "Ask for Terra Cotta-Arc, Saphron's wife. She works at the CCT, so just let her know you're my teammate and she should be able to help out."

Jaune took a step and then immediately back-pedalled. "Wait, money. Uh, can we try something?"

"If what you're about to suggest is to make an actual team fund, you realize we already have one, right? We can just use the empty account that Beacon used to put our stipend into," Weiss pointed out.

"That's sort of what I was thinking, but not quite. Hang on…" Jaune trailed off, checking through menus.

Three scrolls buzzed a moment later.

"I feel like I'm missing something," Ilia stated, the only one who's scroll hadn't vibrated.

"Jaune, did you somehow put the money in your inventory into the team account?"

He shook his head. "I kinda did the opposite? I made the team account my inventory. So, uh, feel free to use what you need."

Ilia's eyes widened as she read the number over Blake's shoulder. "That's nearly a million Lien?! That's…"

"Insane? Yeah, I know. My semblance is weird." He paused again. "Alright, let's move out, Team… AWBI? AWBA? We still need a team name."

Contrary to what Jaune had said he would do, he'd instead wandered down the main street of Argus, after having sent a message to Saphron to let her know what they were doing.

He was, essentially, retracing his steps, heading back up the way they'd come down on their initial entry to the city, looking for something specific.

He found it quickly, they hadn't had to come too far down main before they'd come to Saphron's place, and he entered it even quicker, paying the modest fee of two-hundred-fifty Lien for entry to the community workshop.

It wasn't empty, naturally, there always tended to be one or two people working on something at their own benches, but there were still plenty of free ones, and Jaune took one, thinking for a moment.

Gathering had never been a skill he'd looked at in any detail before, and scanning through it revealed a few things. Namely that due to its level, there wasn't a lot of things Jaune could gather at this point. Perhaps, in a few levels, that would change, but he wasn't expecting a miracle. Clearly this was a skill he should have looked at earlier, though.

Considering some of the things he could gather, however, it was clear that Gathering was the accompanying skill to Crafting. Right now, due to level restrictions, all Jaune could do was chop down pine trees, maybe get some tree sap, mine for chunks of gneiss and dig up sand, and both fish and cook prawns.

Not much, but all of that still required specific tools.

Namely, Jaune needed an axe, a pickaxe, a shovel and maybe a fishing net, if he actually wanted to get some prawns. He hadn't seen a Crafting recipe that wanted prawns, so he was unsure if that was a necessary thing, but pine and gneiss would definitely come in handy, and sand was always useful for a bit of extra Crafting experience from turning it into glass.

Considering he wasn't going to be able to purchase a tool made of Mithril from anywhere, due to the whole thing with him being the person who discovered the metal and all that, he was going to have to make his own tools.

Simple enough for someone with his semblance, but first he had to figure out where that option was in his Crafting menu.

Sure enough, after a bit of looking around, he found what he would need. Specifically, he was going to need to make three tool heads, two of Mithril and one of Bronze, as for some reason there was no higher tier of shovel.

Shoving that confusion out of the way, Jaune set about forging the Mithril and Bronze into the tool heads he was going to need, laying the metal down and beginning the forging process.

He was smart this time, too, even remembering to equip his Designer title!

The tool heads formed under the pressure of both repeated heating and the forge hammer that Jaune wielded with practised efficiency, thundering down upon the hot metal until it formed the shapes he'd required, and quickly the scale was brushed off afterwards, leaving Jaune with tool heads that needed only a single moment of grinding down, thanks to his semblance.

Next, he needed something to stick the heads onto, which meant he had to make five tool shafts, which would be turned into two long grips and a short grip, respectively. Considering he didn't have any pine planks, his only other option was to make the shafts out of steel, which meant more working at ingots, though this time it was handled by a rather advanced CNC lathe, a piece of technology that Jaune was not going to try to comprehend.

It spun the High Steel ingots and cut them into a grip-like shape, so he was more than happy to work it from there.

Once the shafts had been treated with a liberal coating of Inert Dust, Jaune assembled them into the required products, the long grips only requiring a slight bit of welding to get them into the right shape.

Then Jaune hit a minor dead end.

He needed bindings, something to attach the tool head to the grip. Bindings that had a cost of either a bolt of leather, or a bolt of something known as Grimmleather.

The only time he'd ever seen or heard reference to Grimmleather was the material that the Grimmonomicon was wrapped in, so the news that he could make use of it was surprising.

It was also surprising that Grimmleather didn't seem to have any effects. The Grimmonomicon wasn't as cursed as the name would suggest, and reading it didn't seem to have any kind of negative effect, so he had to assume Grimmleather was safe.

He was still wary of the idea, though, there was no telling what kind of ancient, evil magic might be in the leather of the creatures of darkness. Though, considering they weren't actually supposed to drop items, perhaps it wasn't that bad at all.

Jaune went back through his list of craftables, scanning them for Grimmleather. It wasn't long before he found it, thankful to exceed the requirements in both level and ingredients. All it took was two Grimm pelts per bolt, and seeing as he had a significant abundance of Grimm-related items, that was easily done.

He was considering making more of it, before he put that thought aside. This was prep for Gathering, not a session of Crafting grinding.

Not that he didn't just level Crafting, because of course he did the moment after he thought that.

Now he finally had all the components for his three tools, and he was down to the last step; final assembly. It turned out that was, apparently, the easiest step, because all Jaune had to do was place the head on the shaft and wrap it up.

He decided to be mature and not laugh aloud at the unintentional innuendo as the tools formed their finished states.

Despite this not being his first time working with Mithril, he was still amazed at the finish on the shimmering blue metallic substance. The bronze shovel was less fanciful but no less functional, or so he hoped, and he dropped all three into his inventory proudly, ready to go wandering outside Argus's walls, looking for things to chop and dig.

First though, well, he had already paid to get inside the workshop. He might as well get good use out of it.

He wasn't going to make himself any armor today, at least, there were a multitude of reasons why that was actually a bad idea, and considering one of them was the significant reduction of magic damage whenever he wore armor, he figured he was probably better off without any on for the time being.

Of course, for people that didn't use magic, or, more specifically, for summons who didn't use magic…

He was more than willing to put armor on Alcmena and Ouroboros, and much less so with Electrus. He wasn't entirely sure how metal on a literal being of lightning would work, and so decided to err on the side of caution and simply not find out the answer to that potentially volatile question.

Likewise, he didn't want either Bound Soul's agility to be impaired by the armor, so much like Weiss, they would be only wearing a pair of greaves and gauntlets each, though where Weiss's was light armor by the rather literal classification, and the fact that Mithril weighed very little compared to, say, steel, Jaune would be giving both summons medium armor.

It cost more, of course, but cost was a null factor to Jaune, and it would help with their defense for very little movement penalty, so he wasn't worried about the difference.

First, though, he'd need to turn Mithril Ingots into plates, which meant heating and hammering. He needed a grand total of sixteen plates, which was easy enough, and meant that instead of hand-hammering them flat he had an actual reason to use the mechanical forge hammer next to his rented bench.

He repeated the process for Grimmleather once he had the plates made, and then began the less-than-tedious process of assembling both pairs of gauntlets and greaves, until he had them fully ready to be worn.

The workshop wasn't empty, though, so Jaune wasn't going to be summoning Ouroboros and Alcmena out anytime soon, at least, not without some significantly sneaky maneuvers and the additional payment of 500 Lien.

Jaune was definitely more worried about the former than the latter, so he placed the armor into his inventory for the meantime.

There was one last tool Jaune wanted to create, something he'd noticed while searching through his Crafting list. A set of Jeweller's Tools, something he was in a dire need of. He had so many uncut gems in his inventory and no way to use them without the set.

It took next to no time to make the required components for the Jeweller's Tools, as they only required a pair of small steel blades, some small grips cut down to fit the little knives, and a single piece of glass.

Considering he had more than enough of all those parts, he had it done in a few minutes, and now he could yet again go through his list of available recipes, this time looking for his uncut gemstones.

Disappointingly, the only gemstones he had the level to cut were his sapphires and emeralds, but at least he could cut them. It'd save him the effort in the future when he needed them, at least.

Jaune let out a sigh of satisfaction as he dropped the tools and his newly acquired cut gemstones into his inventory, quickly clearing his bench and making sure he was leaving nothing behind as he left, only to pause and double back.

He was forgetting something, clearly, something that he had in his inventory and nearly forgotten about.

He took the Warp PACK out of his inventory and laid it out on the bench, unpackaging it with well-practised haste. Unlike previous PACKs, Warp was a much simpler construction. All he really had to do was anchor the chain to the handle, and then anchor the mace-like head to the chain, and then double check they were properly anchored. It was supposed to be a flail, not a slingshot-like device.

Honestly, now that he looked at it, it honestly wasn't a weapon he would ever really use. Luckily, he knew someone that would, and once he'd tested out Gathering, he would have to give it to them.

His next destination was past the outskirts of Argus, towards the copse of trees that the-team-that-still-needed-a-new-name had passed previously, his newly minted Mithril Axe attached to a magplate on his hip, the new Mithril Pickaxe on the opposite side.

The border security let him past without so much as a vocal complaint, and he nodded to the officer who was still on duty, who clearly recognized him from before.

It was a short jaunt, only a few minutes out of the gate and slightly off the main track, and Jaune pulled the axe off his hip, confusedly.

Something was calling out to him, he could feel it. It was a slight, almost instrumental vibrato, a tremor that seemed to resonate with the axe like he was holding a subwoofer.

He let it pull him deeper into the woodland that surrounded the southern part of the wildlands of Argus, until he reached a pine tree that seemed almost as if it was calling out to him.

Was this how Gathering worked? He didn't know. Luckily, it appeared his semblance did, startling him with a popup notification.

[Gathering Tutorial!]

[Gathering allows you to forage and search the wilderness of Remnant to find natural resources, and to process some of those resources! Many of these resources work off of the node system, which generates specific resource nodes in resource-dense areas. Each node has a total amount that can be gathered from it before the node is depleted, and nodes regenerate to their total every twenty-four hours!]

He read through the notification, nodding slowly to himself as he absorbed the information. "Only some resources have nodes?"

A pair of notifications made him jump again.

[Once a node is depleted, it awards a Depletion Reward, which can be anything from a special item to a completely different node that doesn't decrease your node total!]

[Some resources can be infinitely gathered, so long as you invest the time! Fishing is one such type of resource, as is Hunting! You can endlessly fish and hunt until the heat death of the universe should you choose to, and you will continue to gather resources! These types do not require nodes, but the resources you get will depend on where you are located on Remnant! Naturally, these resources do not have Depletion Rewards, as there is nothing to deplete!]

Well, that certainly answered any questions Jaune had about the skill.

With a shrug, Jaune stepped up to the tree, which Observe noted as a Pine Woodland Node, and swung the axe.

When the axe head made contact with the tree, Jaune felt the impact, but no damage was done to the tree, strangely enough. However, the dinging of a skill leveling and the sudden small notification that a pine log had just arrived in his inventory was more than enough to let him know he'd done the right thing.

Jaune grinned. This tree stood no chance.

Ninety-one pine logs and two pine saplings later, Jaune felled the tree with a mighty swing, cleaving through the damaged wood and emerging victorious out the other side, watching as his arboreal foe slammed against the ground with a mighty crash.

In an unexpected show of loss, the tree, or what remained of its spindly, wooden corpse, began to fade and shimmer, as if it had never truly been there to begin with.

It was exceptionally strange to watch, even as used to weird things as Jaune was.

In the process of slaughtering the now nonexistent flora, Jaune had gained a new title, at level 5 Gathering. The Gatherer title, at the initial rank of Naturalist, was a surprise, but definitely not an unwelcome one. He imagined that it was essentially the mirror of his Designer title, seeing as it appeared to give the same benefits and require the same levels to increase as said title.

At the moment, it gave a bonus twenty percent Gathering experience, which Jaune was happy with. He'd reached level eleven from the entire tree, and that had been a single node.

The node depletion reward of saplings was less interesting, but no less useful. Except for the fact that he didn't have what he was assuming was some kind of farming skill to plant the damn things. He'd figure it out later.

For now, though, he could feel a thrum in his hip, and he stowed the axe and grabbed the pickaxe, feeling its own vibration beneath his palm.

It was leading him somewhere else, not too far considering the strength of the vibration. He followed it as he had the last time, and within thirty seconds he'd already reached the next node.

This node was a large boulder of some kind of rock, banded in light and dark stripes of variating sizes. Observe pegged this node as a Gneiss Node, which was quite a bit of fun to say, and Jaune found himself repeating the words a couple times as he swung his pickaxe at it like a crazy person.

At least nobody was around to see him. Or hear him, which was the more significant point.

It was only a few minutes of swinging his Mithril Pickaxe before Jaune cracked the boulder open, watching as chunks splintered aside and began to shimmer and fade much like the tree had.

His attention was only on them for a few moments, however, before it was torn towards the denser chunk of reddish-brown rock that lay underneath the boulder. His depletion reward had been an Iron Deposit, or so Observe named it, and Jaune was not going to complain about additional resources or experience.

He swung at it and felt the sudden wrongness of some inexplicable force flood his body as his pickaxe bounced off the ore vein like both it and the pick were made of inflated rubber, or the stuff they make those really bouncy balls out of.

Even despite the strangely revulsion-like feeling that was flooding his mind, he at least had the cognitive awareness to realize that those were probably the same thing.

He frowned at the iron deposit, bending at the knees to inspect it closer, letting one hand rest on it. How had he dealt with a material he couldn't mine the last time?

It had been back in the Arcave, the vein of iron ore then had been in what was going to be their workshop. A pang of sadness hit Jaune as he remembered all of what happened after.

No, he needed to focus, not wallow in past miseries. He'd used Ferrokinesis to harvest the ore! It had worked the last time, thankfully, so he didn't see why it wouldn't now!

Even if his semblance was telling him that his Gathering skill was too low. He'd done it before, damn it!

He focused on the feeling of the metal ore beneath his palm, concentrating as he pulled on it with Ferrokinesis, and he could feel it fluctuate beneath his fingers, pulling straight into his inventory. He nearly released his touch on the ore when a new notification popped up without warning.

[You have discovered the interlinking connection between the Kinesis skills and Gathering! Due to the magical nature of the magical kineses, you are capable of utilizing them to gather resources! Experience is awarded equally to Gathering and the chosen Kinesis skill! Each resource has a differing Kinesis requirement, and all requirements are hidden until discovered!]

Well, Jaune was just happy it worked. The added benefit of a ton of Ferrokinesis experience was exactly that; an added benefit.

It may have taken much longer than the gneiss had, but soon enough Jaune had all seventy-five pieces of iron ore in his inventory, and had found himself surprised at the inclusion of another node depletion reward.

Not just surprised that it was there at all, either. The item itself was something he'd never seen before, and something he had to imagine either Weiss would know about, or be stunned into silence by.

In his hand, Jaune held what his semblance helpfully named a Prismatic Dust Prism.

Weiss was going to be very annoyed with him and his accidental attempts at destabilizing the entirety of Remnant's economy.

Gathering was a long, long time waiting, and to think the original system for it was disorganized, scattered and flat-out broken. "Hurr durr mine stone for six thousand hours, become billionaire" was really not what I wanted for that, so I spent a while trying to figure out how to stop that. Limited nodes turned out to be a great solution, if not one that required some hefty coding background. I've gone beyond regular spreadsheet stuff now, I'm writing google scripts that run in the sheet to do stuff. This is why people say I have no life.

Fuck 'em, though, I do this cause I love it.

Anyway, reviews!

fg7dragon: At the moment in the story, Jaune has no way of reversing corruption. Whether or not this is because he doesn't know how, or because I refuse to allow it, is spoiler territory. If you really wanna ruin it for yourself though the patron only spreadsheet has all that on it.

FrostyChops: Perhaps not this chapter, it got a bit long and I didn't want it to go any longer, but very, very soon!

Ashuramaru10: I'm glad you think that, because that's pretty much what I wanted to have from the get-go. Writing Systema gets me feeling like I'm a game dev without having to do all the super-complicated parts of developing a game. I legit have patch notes that I'm planning on posting once we reach the next major update.

avidreaded: Tether did get nerfed a little while back, but it is still pretty busted. I won't nerf it any further because the balance is catching back up to it, but Jaune's less concerned with the damage he can deal and more about finding ways to buy more time to cast more spells.

Argus456: ngl we're pretty much on the same wavelength. I dunno about Jaune raiding a military base, though, considering he's still on friendly terms with the Atlesian Military, at least, as long as they don't find out that he technically murdered Weiss Schnee. Oops.

gogo bananas: I dunno, man, I feel like nausea is a pretty normal response to a tunnel full of corpses. As for Jaune's use of Crocea Mors, it's simply because Jaune doesn't often get into melee range with enemies, and knowledge on Salem is limited at best right now. I can confirm she doesn't have a direct way around the System.

Tsu no mumei: If only someone could tell Jaune that. Maybe he wouldn't have immediately gotten sidetracked by digging for rocks. :P (It's coming soon, I promise)

IHateGenericCereal: Aww man now I wanna write a Punished Jaune story, god damn it. Between that, a Cyberpunk 2077 story and my new My Hero crossover, I have too many ideas and not enough time D:

Gizmo Gear: These are great points, and really good ideas. I've been applying what I can where I can, but there's only so many ideas I can have, so getting more from y'all is super handy. I'm not exactly an RPG player, so I am a little out of my depth. Kinesis skills, as evident from this chapter, will be seeing more use sooner rather than later.

The Qrow: Stasis prevents the target from taking damage until stasis is dropped. It also lasts a very short amount of time, and Jaune wouldn't have had the time to get clear of the explosives before they detonated. Also, Jaune was incredibly low on HP, to the point where the arrow would most likely have killed him outright.

Josh: I'm way ahead of you brother. The Abominae Mask is not just a mask, wink wink.

EmperorCookies: You and me both, mate. If I was actually intelligent enough to do it, I definitely would. As it is, I'm gonna wait until Systema is done before I try that. IF I try that.

Malchior: These are all excellent points that, the more I read, the more I think you should be doing this and not me, lmao. I won't respond to all of it here, because I already get enough complaints about how long these end ANs are, but know that I have taken into consideration everything you've written here. The biggest point is that I'm no more intelligent than you, trust me on that, I'm an idiot, and it's hard to write a character that's super smart without straight up making everyone else stupider. At least, for me, that is. However, it is important to know that the stats are not so much a grade of 1 to 100 as they are 1 to 200, because stats max out at 200. So 100 INT would be very smart, but 200 INT would be genius, for example. There's more to it, but I won't go into detail here. He will be doing more to improve himself, however, because this past arc has been him recollecting the rest of AWBN, and so he's always been more focused on others than himself.

greenitricoxide345: It doesn't, as I tend not to be very active on anything from discord to my late and not-so-great twitter, but if you want to make one be my guest. I probably won't use it because, as I said, I'm rarely active. Besides, discord's rich presence would absolutely sabotage me and show y'all that I'm probably playing some stupid shit instead of writing :P. Though, if you do want to, feel free to send me a link.

razmire: Have you been looking at Jaune's incomplete achievements? How'd you know that super obvious name for it?

That'll have to do for review responses, there's already a lot. Whew. Next chapter will be arriving whenever I can write it, so probably 2023 at this rate.

Thanks to my patrons yet again, and if you want to join the crew of people who continually support me to write the worst code possible for a piece of fanfiction, like the weirdo I am, it's under the same name as pretty much everything else I have.

And, as always, see you next chapter!
~AFatFlyingWhale