Sorry for the late upload, work has me keeping some weird hours.
"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 24 – Into More Ruins, Pt. 2
20 minutes before Pinetree called JAnz
Pilot, Crescent Rose
Crescent was honestly enjoying her second trip into ruins. Despite slimes being considered the most basic mob in gaming, alongside goblins, it had been really freaky to see them in person.
It also probably didn't help that she had happened to see a certain…*cough**cough* adult comic featuring slimes – which she totally didn't read - and her mind may or may have gone to a very wrong place.
But this set of ruins? IT. WAS. AWESOME!
There are so many cool robots with laser guns! Actual laser guns!
Despite Atlas' best efforts and their strides in Hard-Light Dust, they still couldn't make a pure energy-based attack without the use of a Semblance as Hard-Light Dust still held some mass to it.
Which was why it was good at creating barriers and physical constructs, but not energy attacks.
It almost felt like a crime to break them.
Almost.
She would freely admit that robot battles were just too cool not to enjoy.
Her red Magingear fired its handgun – which unfortunately only used conventional bullets – to shoot them as her Piloting skill was level 6 now.
Another thing she loved about her Embryo. Normally, Piloting was limited only to level 5 until a person got a high-rank job like High Pilot, Armored Pilot, or Gale Pilot. But thanks to Wotan's Master the Swaying Weapon, her skills in using weapons – which she was so happy giant robots counted – were always one level higher.
'I love you too Master.' Her Embryo mentally chuckled.
Supposedly the only way to get Piloting to level 10 was to have the High Pilot job as the other two were stuck at level 7. If she got it and maxed out the skill, would Wotan's skill make it level 11?
Despite being in her energy cape form, Crescent could feel Wotan grinning and puffing up her chest 'Of course. I'm an awesome Embryo.'
The redhead with blond tips couldn't contain her chuckling as her Embryo helped her dodge another laser.
It wasn't that she was fast enough or her skill was at that high of a level, it was more Crescent's own Sense Skill as it was called. Despite her geeky persona, Crescent's semblance had allowed her to enjoy running and with constantly using superhuman speed, came a heightened sense of perception.
When combined with her higher-end Magingear, her job skill, and Wotan's skill she could almost perfectly predict which direction the laser was going to be fired in and dodge before the beam was fired.
However, she wasn't the only one making quick work of the robots. JAnz had started using what she called Trickbullets. They were able to change direction midair or break off into smaller pieces like a shotgun shell.
She hadn't used them in the last ruins because slimes were slower and shotgun shell-like bullets wouldn't have helped.
Kelly was using her new High Enchanter job to the fullest while buffing everyone.
Meta didn't have a problem with the lasers as her AGI stat was actually high enough to see them fire and she just opened holes in her clay body to dodge them before eating the robots.
At some point in the fight, she switched from using salt to sweet and sour sauce.
Are the robots made from a different material than the ones outside or did she just want a different flavor?
Though the most surprising was the new guy, Regal.
His Embryo, Haietlik, took the form of two chakrams that looked like black and white snakes biting their own tails with lightning bolt-shaped spikes sticking out.
Lightning crackled along the spikes as he zipped past the laser fire and seemingly with only a single tap of his Embryo, the robots just stopped.
In a matter of moments, a force of several dozens were taken out with ease.
"Regal?" Crescent began.
"yes?"
"H-how did you do that?" she asked not out of shock, but a budding excitement and interest.
"Haietlik has two skills. Thunderbird Thrust either lets me throw it real fast or move real fast while lightning is being channeled through them and Hunting Serpent allows me to drain a certain amount of "power" from it. It can drain anything that the target is using as a fuel source. In the case of living creatures, it's MP and SP. Normally this just makes a creature weaker and disoriented but for these…things, it seems to one-shot them."
"And that's something I don't get," JAnz spoke up.
"What do you mean?" Kelly asked as she was patching up a wound on JAnz's arm.
She gestured with her free arm to all of the robots. "Didn't you notice they all had different names like Teal Wolf and Little Goblin above them, but they all looked the same and all dropped the same items?"
"What if rather than monsters, the things we have been fighting are items that have been using monsters, or rather their Resources, as fuel?" Meta proposed as she continued to dig into a robotic arm.
"What are Resources?" Crescent asked unequipping and stowing her Magingear as she added a few of the robotic remains to an inventory. She wasn't letting all this cool tech go to waste. "I've heard them mentioned before, but never got a real explanation."
"Resources are the building blocks of all of ID." Meta answered, "When you kill a monster or finish a quest, the EXP is made of Resources. When a monster is killed some of its Resources go to form its drop item. That's why some Masters hunt tians because all of their Resources go to whoever killed them."
"Resources comprise our avatars and are even partially responsible for the formation of our Embryos. When they form, they have a finite amount and as a result, Embryos can be strong in only one area, multifaceted, but overall weak in an individual area or somewhere in between."
Once again, their party looked at Meta with a mix of surprise and interest. They didn't think she was dumb, quite the opposite, but sometimes she said things that made it harder to comprehend just how smart she was.
"L-lets keep looking," JAnz said as Crescent took out her Magingear – somewhat awkwardly because she realized she should have probably just kept it out.
'Don't worry Master. Even when you mess up, I think it's kinda cute.' Wotan mentally teased.
Uhh. Why was her Embryo like this?
'I came from a part of you Master.' She teased again.
Crescent for her part was just thankful that she was already in the cockpit of her Magingear and no one could see her as she blushed.
/-/
After another ten minutes of clearing out robots, the party came to a large chamber with crystals as big as a man jetting from the ground.
"Are these…?" Kelly asked almost in complete disbelief.
Their orange, blue, and black-haired party members each went about checking the almost three dozen job crystals.
"I'm seeing Mechanic and Engineer," JAnz flatly stated.
Next was Regal, "All I've found are Mage, Priest, and Necromancer job crystals." He shrugged, "What about you Meta?" he asked examining the room again.
When she didn't reply, everyone turned to see Meta trying to eat one of the job crystals.
For her part, she at least seemed embarrassed.
"Can you eat those things?" Kelly asked in confusion.
"I'm trying, but I can't even scratch it," Meta growled, showing previously unseen frustration as her mouth stretched almost cartoonishly into a maw filled to the brim with razor-sharp teeth.
Crescent wasn't sure if the scene before her should be classified as cute or scary.
"Okay, so we have machine-based crafting jobs and Magic users. Anything else?"
Meta opened a second mouth while her main one was still trying to eat the job crystal.
Definitely scary.
"This is a job crystal for Gem Meister."
"So we're looking at a site focused on what… magical machines?"
Regal took out something that looked like an old Polaroid camera they found in their attic once.
"What's that?"
"A magic item that takes pictures." He explained before taking a few pictures. "You guys are from a crafting clan, don't you know what this is all about?"
This time Meta answered, now already up to six mouths, "While crafting jobs can help you make magic items and imbue spells into them, they're not required. In fact, the tian Flagman despite having only Mage-related jobs seems to have been able to create machinery beyond what even the Atlesian Military is capable of."
"Then can any of you read this writing on the wall?"
Crescent zoomed in with the camera in her Magingear. Little did most people know, it also had a recording function. She was planning to use it to review her duels once she finished the Blooming Rose System.
'Perfection is never going to happen Master' her wolf/raven Embryo mused, 'Waiting for perfection often leads to wasted time.'
The brow over one of her silver eyes raised, 'Did you read my memories again?' she asked clearly recalling her dad and sister saying almost the same thing to her once when she was absorbed in a project.
'Noooooooo.' She replied in a tone Crescent was painfully aware was the same as the one she used when she lied.
'You really did come from a piece of me.'
'Clearly not the chest.'
'WOOOTTTTAAAAAANNNNN!'
Before Crescent could scream so others could hear her, "I think we should keep looking." Kelly offered, more to stop watching Meta grow more mouths trying to eat the job crystal than continuing the search.
"Not much else we can do." JAnz shrugged.
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King of Lightning, Regal
Joining up with these guys hadn't exactly gone as planned. When he heard they were getting paid a crap ton of lir, he was all for it.
The fact it was on the way to Huang He where the rest of his clan was, was just a bonus.
So far though, he hadn't gotten much use.
Typically, ruins contained rare job crystals, materials, or even some items or possibly monsters with good drops.
So far, he hadn't got any of that.
What's more, it made him more than a little nervous.
While tians didn't act against PK clans when they only targeted Masters, this wasn't always the case.
Chrono and JAnz were solo acts when it came to PK'ing so ultimately, their effect on the Dryfe's Masters wasn't all that prolific.
But entire clans could be a different story entirely.
Pre-Superiors, and possibly even Superiors if there was a heavily skewed compatibility issue, could be taken down by a clan of PKs.
Some PK clans, like Witch's Star in Altar, got away with it by cannibalizing other PK clans, and while he took extra pleasure in eradicating Black Cauldron and its arrogant ass of a clan leader, Dryfe wasn't as kind as Altar.
It was obvious someone in the royal family was trying to draw as many Masters as possible. The fact they got so many to come to Dryfe for the repair of Vandelheim was proof enough.
So when faced with the possibility of being forced out of Dryfe, he decided to look for allies outside of Dryfe.
And while looking for an ally, he found the devil.
Despite what he said about an entire clan having the possibility of beating a Superior, it was important to specify that said chance was something like 0.00001% unless someone in the clan had an Embryo that was a perfect counter to the Superior's build and Embryo.
Despite countless sleepless nights since their only encounter, he had yet to even think of a hair-brained plan to fight that…monster.
Let alone an actual plan.
What was probably the most terrifying thing about him was how he talked. Neither his voice nor his body conveyed anything, it was like talking to a statue that was somehow able to reply.
The golden mask didn't help either.
But most disturbing was that he seemed to know…everything.
Regal had gotten his ultimate skill, not an hour before going to PK the masked bastard, and yet he was able to figure out how his Embryo worked better than he did.
Even more disturbing was that he sent him a message less than an hour before JAnz showed up. An HOUR!
Normally, he would assume JAnz was simply tailed, but he knew her. He knew she kept an eye out for people tailing her…pun not intended.
Yet, he knew he would accept, that they would find a valuable treasure and that he would give it to him.
So far he couldn't see any treasure to give. Which made him all the more nervous.
No, stay focused. There are still other places to search.
There is still a chance.
The chamber with the job crystals was connected to three other hallways.
/-/
Pilot, Crescent Rose
"Which one?"
"Hey, Meta?" Crescent asked.
"Yes, friend Crescent."
"Can you split your body into different parts and control them like that clay character in comics?" (1)
"Sorry, I cannot. The most I can do is stretch myself."
Janz looked around, "I don't think we should split up. Those robots might have been easy to take down as a group, but if they had managed to overrun us, we probably wouldn't be so lucky."
"If it's scouting leave it to me," Kelly said as she took a Job Crystal (the kind to change jobs) from her Inventory.
Punga manifested from the teal green – that seemed to be her color – crest on her left hand that looked like a wave emerging from a small creature.
A headset with a screen-like lens that can be flipped in front of the user's left eye manifested on Kelly's head.
"Alright little dude, I need you to scout ahead."
Punga nodded and its feet mechanically shifted into wheels.
So cool.
'And cute.'
After a few minutes, the party followed Kelly, as the signal between her and her Embryo could only go so far, and Regal asked "Anything?"
Was he the impatient type?
"So far it looks like just another hallway, another room with job crystals, and some more writing on the wall. Don't know what it says thought?"
"Why not? Why make something in the game that the players can't understand?" Regal asked looking more frustrated. "I mean in other games ruins give a crap ton of treasure, rare items, or at least hints at the lore. So do you need a job to understand it or something?"
"Not quite." Their Type: Body Embryo user answered, "There appear to be at least two languages in Infinite Dendrogram friend Regal. The first is the language used by modern-day tians while the other is related to the pre-ancient civilization. I know a few tians who can read it, however, they have all informed me that the only way to read it is to learn the language."
"Sounds like crappy game design to me."
"It's not uncommon for people to have to put in the leg work for a quest or a special reward, why would lore hunting be any different?" the bluenette said as she held up the rear, both pistols were drawn. "I mean have you seen some of the convoluted quest lines from Tosoftware games (2)?"
He was about to speak, but nodded his head in acknowledgment, "Fair point."
After reaching the room at the end of the hall, all they found was more of the same types of job crystals, and a connecting room that may have been living quarters based on the decaying metal bunk beds.
Returning to the main chamber, they went to check the second hallway.
While they encountered some resistance from the robots, they were less numerous than before and even if they normally had an advantage in tighter spaces, between JAnz's Trickbullets and Regal's chakrams, they didn't last long.
The second hallway led to a large mural depicting thirteen otherworldly creatures descending upon what appeared to be depictions of tians. The land behind the thirteen was depicted as some type of post-apocalyptic wasteland while the land behind the tians appeared as a lush paradise.
"I think we should take a picture of this, friend JAnz," Meta spoke up pointing to more writing on the wall.
Shrugging, JAnz did so and then they all heard a voice in their heads.
'Guys, can you hear me?'
/-/
Burst Gunner, JAnz
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
Why did Crescent have to accept a random quest from some random tian?
Pinetree had contacted them after he was captured and had been feeding them information about who was outside while they made their way down the third hallway.
Of course, it was full to the point of bursting with fucking robots!
She didn't even have to aim. Just point and fire an exploding Trickbullet and she would take down four or five robots like that.
The problem was, for every robot she took out, three more seemed to take its place. Given the sheer number of them, the lasers kept them pinned.
Even Meta was having trouble getting close to them. Despite not wanting to use her volume to create Adamantine barriers to give them some cover.
Crescent was forced out of her Magingear, otherwise she would be a giant sitting target.
What her newest "friend" hadn't told her was that she had a freaking magic pistol. It looked like an antique Cult Atlesian Navy Revolver and fired freakin' lightning bullets.
"How the hell did you get a magic pistol?" she called to the woman in the red and white pilot suit with a red energy cape.
"Gatcha!" she shouted as she hit another robot.
JAnz had to fight the ever-growing urge to facepalm.
How could this get any worse?
'There are six of them. A woman in a sailor suit, a woman in a color-shifting cloak, a guy dressed like a dark lord from an anime, one with a sandy-colored cloak and a sniper rifle, a guy in blue with giant floating metal gauntlets, and a guy dressed as a butler.'
"Fuck!" she cursed as she fired two rounds of exploding Trickbullets.
Of fucking course. The Apostle Siblings, the King of Resistance, and the King of Gems.
She didn't know about the sailor suit chick or the one in the sandy cloak, but she knew the rest.
The first two are a pair of PKs. They're known for having a real hate boner for Dryfian Masters. Or anyone with a mechanical Embryo.
Crescent and Kelly would have a hard time around them.
The King of Resistance was ranked sixth in the Caldina Duel Rankings and the King of Gems was third in the Kill Rankings.
Just freakin' perfect.
How the actual hell could this get any worse?
'There's a new woman who's fighting the guys from Caldina and managed to take out the woman in the sailor suit.'
'What does she look like?' Crescent asked as her bullet took out three robots in a row.
'Dark skin with white tribal markings like from Vacuo, red hair, and has a snake on her arm.'
FUCK!
Of course, Bahia is here. Why wouldn't the Dryfian Royal Family's guard dog be here?
At least this confirmed who they were working for at least.
While not a PK, Bahia, or rather Ripper as most who knew her called her, was a dangerous Master. Made famous for how she was somehow able to rip people to pieces from a distance.
Some said she was a Superior.
Which made why she was only tenth in the Kill Rankings all the more confusing.
Then again, it was said she had a weird login schedule, so maybe she just didn't have the time.
Either way, it meant they had a dangerous new ally and were probably going to be dragged into some political shit.
When they made it back, she was going to ask for double pay for this.
Then again, given her reputation, that was provided Bahia didn't PK them until we either left Dryfe or just stopped logging in altogether.
Just perfect. Just fucking perfect.
"Fuck it!" she shouted in pure frustration as she loaded her special reward revolver with a special bullet, aimed, and fired before a massive wave of heat and flame burst forward, skipping the phase of melting the metal of the robots and going straight to evaporating it.
"What was that?!" the redhead with blonde tips cheered, eyeing JAnz's revolver like she was a new shiny toy.
"A special Trickbullet I made that took asking a favor from the King of Libraries to use a fire spell on par with a Superior Job's ultimate skill."
"How did you manage to convince him to do that?!" Regal asked completely befuddled as to what she had that she could convince another country's Superior to help her with…well anything.
It wasn't like the guy wasn't loaded, so lir probably wouldn't have done it.
"Oh, I just traded him some items I just had lying around."
"Really?" he blinked owlishly, "Guess some people have all the luck."
"Yeah, luck."
/-/
Meanwhile at the Clocktower
"Clan leader." Someone said as they walked into Doc Cricket's office.
"Yes, whale-t is it?" the man in the whale suit chuckled.
"Uh, clan leader that was just horrible."
"I think it was a whale of a good pun."
"Please stop."
"Okay, okay, now what did you want to talk about?"
"Oh, uh, I was doing an inventory on the library after some people reported not being able to find certain books relating to magic and Pre-Ancient Civilization tech and have discovered several were not only not properly checked out, but we've found out that most of them were taken from the library some time ago and never returned."
"Now how on Remnant did that happen?"
/-/
Opal Administrator
he – though "he" was a term of convenience– had been monitoring the construction of the anti-incarnation weapon and command of the Prism Soldiers.
Its form was that of a tall mechanical humanoid with the lower half similar to an octopus as numerous cables connected it to several hundred Mages in tubes stacked up on top of each other in a large chamber as they seemed to fit into the walls. A number of the green glowing tanks have gone black.
These were tians, or more precisely tians that had taken the Mage job and its various high-rank counterparts as well as Necromancer to bind their souls to their bodies in a bio-organic machine interface preventing their bodies from decaying and allowing them to continually generate MP and apply skills through Opal Administrator as a medium at the cost of their minds.
That was not to say that the bodies would never expire. The necessary Resource drain had depleted 627 of the initial 1533 Mages used in the initial development.
Their purpose was to feed mana and apply skills over and over again to specially designed panels created by Flagman to allow low and high-rank jobs to imitate spells comparable to Superior Jobs' Final Blows.
In nearly two thousand years, there had been no changes.
Until 394 hours, 26 minutes, and 18 seconds ago, that abnormal seismic activity uncovered a portion of the factory designed to finish the anti-incarnation weapon to defeat the Incarnation of Nature.
Preliminary scouting performed by the Prism Soldiers assigned to guard the facility had determined that the flora, fauna, and even monsters were incongruent with all available databases.
More pressing was the fact that lesser variants of the incarnations that destroyed the pre-ancient civilization had appeared, and roughly 150 hours later returned in larger numbers.
Initially as the only one that had a partially identifiable signature of a Prism Person while simultaneously showing readings of a lesser incarnation.
This was ruled as an error in the sensors and any signals that could not be identified as solely Prism Person were to be designated as hostile.
As more appeared, though weaker than the incarnations, they were definitively incarnations.
While Opal Administrator was able to function from accumulated MP generated by the Mage Corpses without endangering the anti-incarnation weapon, the Prism Soldiers were mass-produced models and thus needed Resources to fuel them.
The arrival of multiple incarnations – even if they were far weaker than the ones from two millennia ago – was proving difficult to defend against.
Opal Administrator had diverted some resources from the Mage Corpses to temporarily power some Prism Soldiers until they could gather necessary power sources. However, it had insufficient time to gather proper sources of power for the Prism Soldiers nor were more than a tenth of the total Prism Soldiers fully operational.
Opal Administrator's AI was not on par with a Prism Person, but despite that, his calculating speed was comparable to Atlas' best supercomputer.
After expending Prism Soldiers it had analyzed both the incarnations inside the facility as well as outside of it.
It had been calculating their attack patterns and abilities.
The Job System database allowed it to identify what jobs were present.
Jobs identified: Pilot, Burst Gunner, Scout, King of Lightning, Eater Princess, Beast Ogre, Chariot Princess, King of Gems, Clay Princess, Black Hand, King of Resistance, Swordmaster, Burglary Princess.
Chariot Princess removed.
Error: Prism Soldier in high-security area signal lost.
Error: incarnations displaying varied abilities unrelated to either Archetype System or known incarnation abilities.
It had been programmed to prioritize the development of the elemental panels. Repair functions and inventory integration were intended to be added last for proper installation.
In any normal situation, this would have been a proper sequence to ensure the highest chance of success.
Emergency protocols were running through its processors to determine the best possible chance of success.
Analyzing…
Analyzing…
Analyzing…
Analyzing…
Analyzing…
Within mere seconds, it had calculated the odds of success for thousands of scenarios.
Solution found: initiating emergency launch protocols.
Within moments, the Resources and MP were drained from all remaining Mage Corpses and available Prism Soldiers.
Within the last few moments of his remaining activation, Opal Administrator received a signal of an incarnation far more powerful than all others combined.
This fact did not cause him to question or try and reevaluate his actions. No, rather it was the machine equivalent of a long-awaited goal to be realized finally and for its long-standing programming to finally be fulfilled.
In short, this was his "It's finally time" moment.
/-/
Outside the Ruins, Beyond where the others were fighting
A young man with a decidedly heavy look cat sitting on top of his head was looking out from an outcropping as he watched as a mechanical moth began to rise from the ground.
The area around it shifts similarly, though on a smaller scale of only tens of kilometels, like that of the 5th control A.I., into a burning hellscape in an instant.
"Caterpillar is not going to like this oneeee." He drooled at the end. His colleague had enough trouble with Superiors who liked to go around changing the landscape. Those who were usually high on the Kill Rankings tended to give him the most headaches.
"We need to have a word with Hatter about his work ethiiiic." The young man with the cat on his head turned towards the voice…which was an exact duplicate of himself, cat and all.
"I think the word you're looking for is interventionnnn." Said a third voice.
As he turned, he saw seven other versions of himself, all standing around a deflated and damaged giant polar bear stuffed animal with weapons such as a Gatling gun, chainsaw, and several curved blades as long as his forearm sticking out from where its claws would be connected to chains.
There was stuffing coming out of it that was blue and moved like a cold fire, but did not burn or damage the suit.
In fact, he knew that the flame-like substance was how the suit was able to even move. The Ancient Legendary special reward was given a semblance of life due to an Embryo skill.
While his stats were locked at level 1000 (500 for his sub jobs and 500 for his main Superior Job The Lynx) it wasn't as though the construct had been all that difficult to beat, but rather its resilience and durability – not to mention its ability to lock itself in space – turned it into a battle of attrition.
Though given the proximity, this kind of task would have fallen on Control A.I. 12, Rabbit, but he's currently getting ready for the war between Huang He and Tenchi.
He did not pity his colleague. His accelerating time thirtyfold would be the same as him using his Octamillionchrome Cats – Grimalkin, the drowsiness – more along the lines of extreme lethargy if he was human – made the cooldown difficult for him. And that wasn't even counting the processing headaches that followed.
He sighed.
Looking down at the damaged suit, still trying and failing to move, he gave a complicated smile.
On one hand, so many Masters he thought highly of were involved and per his own beliefs, he would not interfere with their freedom.
Ego Wizdeth, Kilowatts, and Crescent Rose.
On the other hand, he debated how to handle the situation.
GIL T Crowned had already been taken out in the initial attack. Which was a shame, her Embryo was best suited for this kind of opponent.
After scratching his chin for a few moments he decided on his battle plan. His primary mission was to conceal the history of the incarnations beyond legend. He could try using his passcode to deactivate it, but that ran the risk of divulging his identity, so that wasn't an option.
He decided to keep two of himself to watch while the rest moved towards the remains of the facility.
(1) Clay Face
(2) A pun on Fromswoftware games
Got a little more backstory on Regal and the Cadlina team as well as a list of some…interesting Masters.
Crescent Rose = Ruby Rose
Kelly Hawks = Reese Chloris
JAnz = Nebula Violette
P-M374 (Meta) = Penny Polendina
Regal = Nolan Porfirio
Doc Cricket = Pietrro Polendina
Alf = Whitely Schnee
Bahia = Emerald Sustrai
Ego Wizdeth = ERROR
Kilowatts = Arthur Watts
GIL T Crowned = Gillian Asturias
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