Omnitrickery: I wonder what would have happened if Jim told him the methods he got from the other world… It would be interesting to see.

You know too much. I mailed you a pipe bomb (jk). They wouldn't work for the ring hero as the method isn't a part of this world.

Omnitrickery: Speaking of, what's stopping somebody from making up an upgrade method and lying to the hero about it? Would the weapon not recognize the method as valid since it was made up, or since there's ad infinitum weapons in that multiverse would it just accept the method given?

See, how method sharing works is that you must know the method, the weapon it comes from, and the weapon must be from your world. So normally JIm can't use Clara's methods, same way she can't use his. Now my crackpot theory which I needed for a plot device in this fic is that methods can be shared during the waves, same way that you can use weapon forms from both worlds during the waves, despite some of Clara's weapons not working in Jim's world and vice versa, or the way that you get to use levels from both worlds (Naofumi having 76 from his and 75 from Glass' world, for a total of [76+75] levels during Kyo fight).

So my theory is that during the waves, since you can use items and levels from both systems/worlds, you could theoretically use other sharable functions like methods and such. But that's just a theory, a crack theory! May be confirmed or denied in V23 if we get a specific set of circumstances.

So the Ring hero can't use Hol's methods unless a wave happens, and even then, it could depend on wether the weapon allows it or not. It could just say NAH or nerf the buff. And you can't make up methods. You have to know the method and the weapon and be a part of the same world. And made up methods just don't function. Unless like some random dude makes up that the ring has a money % buffing method without knowing it, and it just so happened to be true. So like if Jim goes to Naofumi's world and says that hammer has weapon synthesis, Naofumi, having a vassal hammer with synthes in his world, would get synthesis. But the other methods wort work.

Anyhow, onto the chapter


"Mother f*cker!" Jim screamed, punching the wall as hard as he could. His clothes were soaked from landing in a large mass of water, and he was currently trying to navigate through the dimly lit corridor deep underground. Some weird green crystals poked out of the walls, weakly lighting up the area.

"Who's there?!" someone yelled from the dark hallway up ahead.

"Depends where 'there' is!" Jim yelled back.

"Don't try to act smart kid, you're in the Gulag. I don't know what you've done to get in here but you must have pissed off the hero of the vassal ring pretty badly," the voice replied. A man rounded the corner with a glowing lamp in his hand. "What's your name?"

"Jim. And yours?"

"Don't bother remembering. You'll just call me a guard soon anyways. Now follow me to your cell," he said, turning around.

"Cell? The hell? Why would I follow you to a cell?" Jim questioned, reaching for his hammer.

"Not like you have much of a choice. You're in the Gulag kid, anyone our king sends here doesn't come out without his permission. Now you can either follow me willingly, or I'll drag you there myself," he said, turning to Jim without a care in the world. His posture was relaxed as if he didn't even think of Jim as a threat.

"Good luck with dragging me when I knock your lights out! Mjolnir!" Jim yelled, swinging his hammer at the guy.

The knight yawned and grabbed the hammer mid air. He seemed to be stopping it with ease despite Jim using his strongest skill.

"How the fu-?"

"Dragging it is!" the knight smiled, punching Jim in the face.

[]—

"Hah… f*ck! Who knew traversing this hellhole would be so difficult?" Hol grumbled, looking around. He knew the hourglass was around here somewhere, but the guards in front of the gates were probably overleveled, and levels was something Hol was lacking.

Reset to level one upon coming here. Just my luck. And all these low quality potions in this world slightly recover my stamina and give very little exp. I should have asked Raila to drive me into this world.

Hol looked around and shifted a bit closer to the front entrance, ready to jump to register and portal away as soon as he's done.

"You really shouldn't be wearing a black cloak to hide. It brings more attention to you," a voice called out to him, grabbing his shoulder.

"Sh*t! Por-," he started, but a strong hand grabbed his mouth, silencing his words. Hol tried to break free, but it felt like a brick wall grabbed him.

"Relax. I'm not gonna kill you if you don't try to start sh*t. Are you gonna try and start sh*t?" the person asked. Hol tried to shake his head, but she understood the gesture. The woman dropped him to the ground and pointed to a nearby building.

"Let's go grab a bite. While we do, you can explain to me why another vassal hero is trying to register at this world's hourglass," she said, dragging Hol into a nearby restaurant.

[]—

"Mother f*cker!" Jim yelled, standing up from the… bed?

"Oi! Keep it down! Some of us are trying to f*cking sleep here!" someone barked at him. Jim looked around and frowned.

He was in what looked to be a small prison cell with a toilet and a bunk bed. A small table stood in front of him with a few packs of dry noodles.

"Sh*t, where am I this time?" he grumbled.

"Will explaining it to you make you shut up faster?" his roommate grumbled from the top bunk.

"Yes," Jim replied, standing up and looking at the guy.

"F*ck, there goes my nap. The name is Cobalt and you're in Phantom Zone prison," he started. "Hand me one of those packets while you're down there."

"Here. So what's this prison like? And why do I feel so heavy?" Jim asked, opening his status. His eyes widened as he saw that all of his stats were reduced to around half of what he remembered.

"That'd be the Kryptonite in this prison. You should see it when you go out into the hallway. Halves all your stats. Don't think that the knights are gonna go easy on you though, their stats are normal," Cobalt explained, chomping down on the dry noodles.

"How come they have normal stats?" Jim grumbled, looking out the small window. Just like Cobalt said, a large green stone hanging down from the ceiling. He noticed that the lanterns also had a similar green glow and the walls and floor all faintly radiated the color back at the stone.

Ok, whoever named that thing was definitely a fan of Lex. Well, this sucks.

"See those glowing rings the guards have? Yeah, we've been trying to get our hands on some of those for a while now. Too bad those things are guarded heavily or attached to the outfit of the guards," Cobalt explained in between chomps.

Jim saw a small ring on the hand of the guard that was passing by his cage. A small design that looked like a lantern was drawn on top of it.

This place is a walking pile of references. When are we gonna get the man of iron?

"I pissed off a noble and got sent here. What are you in for?" Cobalt asked, chucking the wrapper of his snack into the toilet.

"Hell if I know. One day I'm taking to the ring vassal, and the next the mother f*cker drops me here!" Jim replied, scratching the back of his head.

"What the hell? Why did he want to talk to you?"

"Ah, I'm the Holy Crafter Hero, or hammer hero, depending on who you ask," Jim replied, raising his hammer.

"Suuuure," Cobalt laughed. "And I'm the king of this country."

"..."

Cobalt looked at him for a few seconds as Jim transformed his hammer and his smile vanished. His eyes almost popped out of their sockets.

"Wait, you're f*cking serious?! Holy sh*t man! I did not think I'd meet the holy hero here of all places!"

"Yeah, I didn't expect to be in such a place," Jim fired back.

"Damn, tough luck. But as the Crafter Hero you should fit right in with the rest of us. All we do here is eat, sleep, and craft whatever is needed for the kingdom."

"Wait, you guys craft sh*t daily?"

"Yeah. We either make buildings that we later decimate anyway, or just a ton of rings made of stone. Sometimes they bring in monsters that we have to turn into weapons for the army," he said, throwing a stone ring to Jim. Jim flipped it over in his hands and frowned.

A stone lantern ring. Never thought I'd see one of these. But this is just like Jarvestia! Stay inside and craft. Damn it! I traded one prison for another!

"Damn it. How the hell do I get out of here?" Jim mumbled to himself, looking around the room.

"You want out of this prison? I doubt you'll get far," Cobalt said.

"Why is that?"

"Even if you were super high leveled your stats are reduced to half. Most of these guards aren't gonna feel jack even if you punch them as hard as you can," he explained.

"So we just have to take a ring. Do you know where they keep them?"

"Don't bother. They have a whole bunch in the back of the armory room. But that thing is heavily guarded, so unless you can sneak past the armory lock, and then also see the code combination on the lock to the ring vault, you have no chance. And that thing is a four digit lock, so you won't have enough time to try them all. Trust me. We tried."

Jim paused and looked back at Cobalt. "We?"

"Yeah. Me and a few boiz here were trying to escape for a while. But this prison is guarded heavily, and without our stats we can't break the locks or anything of the sorts. We can't even fight the guards since those guys also have equipment and accessories," Cobalt explained.

"I see. What if I got my hands on some rings for you guys?" Jim asked. "Would you help me get out of this hellhole?"

Cobalt laughed at first, but then he thought for a bit.

"Huh. Actually… what kind of skills do you have?"

Revealing all my cards now will be detrimental later, but these people are probably my best chance to get out of here. Reminds me of a prison break sidequest in leodine online, though there you had to get captured to help rescue an npc who later hooked you up with all kinds of potions. But I never heard of the Phantom Zone Prison, so I don't think I'll find them here.

"Well, I think this skill will come in handy. Hide Hammer," Jim replied, disappearing from view. Cobalt looked around in shock for a few seconds, but after the shock passed a large smile appeared on his lips.

"Oh yeah, that will be quite useful!"

[]—

"So let me see if I got this right. The other vassal jumped through the wave and blasted your vassal 6 feet under all so that he could take your… jar?" she asked, swaying a bit from side to side.

Hol nodded. His body was tense and his fingers were next to his weapon.

"Relax, jeez. I'm too drunk to fight anyway. You wanna kill that guy? Be my guess. Hell, I'll even get you to the hourglass if you want," she said, dropping her bottle of alcohol. "Are you not gonna take any?"

"Sorry, I'm on a mission," Hol replied, turning away from her. She frowned and grabbed another bottle.

"More for me, I guess. What's your world like? If you tell me "

Hol looked out the window and frowned.

"Well, we don't have carriages. We get from place to place with floating ships, and some of our islands float," he replied. Hol tapped on his status, and his weapon transformed into one made of crystal. A floating image of an island popped up, making the vassal pickaxe user stumble back.

"Woooooah" she exclaimed, looking at the island with awe. "That's so cool! Man, I wish I was summoned to your world instead. It looks so much cooler!"

"Thanks. Tho we do have a bunch of annoying flaming vultures flying around at anything that has heat, which can be annoying as hell. And then there are the pack leaders which are on fire, but kill you by stealing your body heat and freezing you to death. And the rest is just dragons pestering us," Hol explained.

"Damn, that sounds kinda fun. I wanna ride one," she grumbled. "You think I can come by through these waves to your world one day if someone else becomes the pickaxe hero?"

"Probably? I mean, I didn't even know you could go in through a wave, I just found that out recently. Until now I thought it was only specific vassals who could do that."

"Oh yeah, waves happen when worlds collapse and the borders between the two blur together, which lets us vassals, or anyone really, just hop on through. The holy heroes are stuck tho, as they are the pillars of reality for their worlds. What I meant was can I come with you and try flying on one of those ships you showed me. That and I want a vulture pet! Those look epic and I wanna have one!" she suddenly yelled the last one as the drink in her hand was sent flying by her flailing arms.

Hol just barely dodged the flying glass and it crashed into the person behind him. The man stood up, towering over Hol, and glared at the vassal hero.

"What the hell you doin? Picking a fight, ain'tcha?" the man growled out, glaring daggers at Hol.

"So what if we are?" the other hero asked, walking in front of Hol.

"Leona, you have thrown your last cup today!" the man yelled, swinging his massive fist at the pickaxe hero. Leona sidestepped his attack and grabbed his hand, and slammed him onto a nearby table with a loud crack. This caused the people at the table, who didn't get knocked out, to get up and try to fight Leona. Keyword, tried.

Leona was a lot faster and stronger than she looked. She easily dodged everyone's attacks and threw them around like they were weightless. And even if a sneak attack happened to land, she didn't seem to take any damage from it. She would just hit back so hard that Hol sword he could hear bones cracking.

The longer the fight went on, the less Hol could call it a fight, and the more it seemed like a massacre. Leona had a crazed and drunk smile on her face as she swung her fists around. Hol took a few steps back to avoid the fight as he wasn't sure he could keep up with all of the drunk people or accidentally get killed by Leona.

Suddenly Leona pulled out her vassal pickaxe and called out to a skill. A bolt of electricity covered the metal of the pickaxe and began to give off a bright blue glow.

"Oh sh*t, she's using a skill! RUN!" one man screamed and dove under a table.

"I ain't scared of a little skill! COME AT ME YOU B*TCH!" the large man from before screamed, pulling out his mace and running forth. Leona laughed and dashed in his direction, jumping off of several people's heads.

Suddenly a man bashed a glass bottle on the large man's head, sending him rolling to the ground.

"Hey! He was mine!" Leona screamed and ran at the man. Before Hol's eyes the broken bottle neck he held morphed into a wooden table. Leona's pickaxe crashed into the table and a bright flash of light erupted from the impact. When the light finally disappeared Hol saw Leona laying on the ground and clutching her head.

"Ow," she whimpered, before the man in front of her grabbed Leona by the collar and lifted her back on her feet.

"Oi! What did I say about starting fights?" the man yelled at everyone in the bar as he brushed some dirt off of his clothes. He looked back at Leona and grumbled.

"Sit over there and don't cause any trouble for Fane or me. Or you'll be banned from coming here," he said before walking off to fix the damage she caused.

Hol followed Leona as she stumbled over to the bartender who was cleaning some glasses.

"So who was that? He had a transforming weapon but you and that ring guy are already this world's vassals."

"That's Zarin, he's my world's vassal hero," the bartender said before offering him a drink. Hol shook his head while Leona happily took it in his stead.

"What do you mean your world's vassal? Are you the other vassal or just hanging out with one?"

"He's the holy Tavern hero, Fane. That guy is the vassal *hic* bar brawler," Leona explained before chugging a bottle she grabbed from behind the counter.

"You have to pay for that," Fane said, pointing to the bottle.

"Yeah yeah, put it on my tab," she replied, finishing the bottle and reaching for another.

"Wait, you're the holy hero?! I thought you said holy heroes can't leave their worlds!"

"I'm not actually here. One of my abilities is that any bar set up in my name allows me to create a puppet and use it as my body to visit any of the bars I own in any world. So I'm still in my world with my holy weapon," Fane explained.

"Ok, did everyone just get a manual for interdimensional travel?! Cause my only two sources are a friend with a transport vassal train, this woman, and a guy shoving a hyper beam down my vassal hero's throat! Did I just miss a memo?! Would have been a nice heads up to know that a vassal can just invade a world of mine at any point in time!" Hol yelled as he angrily slammed his fist on the table.

"Here, it's some notes on everything that my cult has managed to find out on interdimensional travel," Fane said, handing Hol a small notebook. Hol opened it up and looked through it curiously, but his expression became defeated once he got a good look at the information inside of the notebook.

"I can't read it," he said, dropping his head onto the table. Fane let out a sigh and soon Hol saw a small bottle of alcohol land in front of him.

"I can't, I'm on a mission," Hol grumbled.

"It's only 5%, and it'll let you translate different languages," Fane explained. Hol let out a sight and stashed the two in his weapon.

"So *hic*, what's da pla~an?" Leona questioned, slurring her words a bit. Her face was red and she swayed from side to side.

"Register at the hourglass in this country. He didn't show up in the last wave, and I don't remember hearing of a third hourglass so far, so the only other option is this one. He showed up in my wave, meaning he was most likely registered to the hourglass here and if I follow him there is a chance I can get to that bastard and take the jar back."

"Sounds like a plan," Leona mumbled, laying down on the counter. Fane looked at Hol and pulled out a few small bottles of alcohol.

"Take a few of these with you. They will give you buffs as you drink them," started, but Hol shook hsi head before the guy explained the effects.

"I would but… I can't get drunk until I beat the hell out of that bastard myself," Hol grumbled.

"What do you need? Attack or defense?" he asked, taking the drinks back.

"I guess defense. My armor isn't exactly functional in this world," Hol replied. Without saying a word, Fane began to mix several drinks together. Hol watched him curiously as the liquids mixed, their colors changing back and forth. One drink in particular seemed to take the longest, and Fane finished by first dropping in a bit of red coloring, followed by blue, turning the mixture into a transparent purple. After a few seconds he set 4 small bottles back on the table. Hol saw that one of them was in the shape of a skull with a deep red liquid inside, while the other 3 looked pretty normal in comparison.

"This one is just a basic attack buff. This will boost your health recovery. And this one will buff your defense by about 50%, but you will lose a bit of your attack. All of these should last an hour," he explained.

"What about this one?" Hol inquired, tapping the skull shaped bottle.

"That's the kill cup. I'm just gonna tell you this right now, don't use it unless it's your last resort. Big boost, bigger backlash. Consider this last drink on par with a curse series. It's powerful and can help, but it'll make you suffer after you use it. And it only lasts one minute," he warned, pushing the bottle forward. Hol nodded and took the bottle.

"Not sure why you're helping me, but I appreciate it," Hol replied.

"I'm helping you cause it seems like your holy hero is having a hard enough time as is. With one of their vassals dead and the other in another world. Doesn't sound like a good time to me. So think of it as a helping hand from one cardinal to another, the faster you get done with your mission, the better for them."

Hol smacked his head in realization and a bit of panic showed on his expression.

I left her all alone! What the hell am I gonna do?! I might not return for a while! I don't know when the next wave with my world hits! Oh cr*p, I fucked up.

"Don't look so worried. With the data we gathered, if things go wrong and the world is in danger, all vassals get teleported back to their worlds whether they want to or not. Judging by how your weapon is still intact and you're here, your hero must be handling things pretty well. Page 5 if you want more details," Fane assured the vassal hero.

Huh. That's a neat function. I guess the kid has been doing pretty well on her own. I guess I should have more faith in her.

"Hey, if you ever need someone to talk too or just have a good place to relax and wash your woes away, just find my tavern. I'm sure I'll appear in your world soon enough. Also, please take Leona out of here before she vomits all over my chairs again, it's a pain to clean up," Fane finished, giving Hol a friendly smile.

"Thanks."

"No, like, now. She's about to vomit. Go now before she does!" Fane exclaimed, pushing Leona towards Hol. He walked behind the bar as the two exited his pub.

Good luck to you two, and your holy hero.