novelraw Chapter 90 : Chapter 90
Chapter 90 : Chapter 90
Chapter 90 : Mythos Crafter Essence
"Normally, I should make excuses saying he's not usually like that... but as time goes on, I'm becoming more convinced of the opposite. I think that's just the kind of human he is."
Upgrade spoke as soon as the Blueprint Office door closed.
Just moments ago, Chatfield had snatched the third-year blueprints from her hands, returned to his workbench, and was muttering while pulling at tubes.
Sal was so relieved to escape that awkward and suffocating atmosphere.
After walking a few steps away, he looked at Upgrade and tilted his head.
"I knew there were many professors with strong personalities... but isn't he a bit excessive? What subject does he teach?"
Upgrade looked around the workshop, then pointed to Room 17 where they had crafted the Legend rank sniper rifle together.
"Let's go inside and talk. You set up for your design work. I'll gather my things."
Sal didn't know if Upgrade avoided answering on purpose or if she just wanted to talk privately inside, but he didn't ask further and quietly headed for Room 17.
When Sal turned on the lights at the door, he felt relieved as the familiar lighting brightened the room.
It was exactly as he had last used it last week.
Once the second years started coming to the workshop in earnest, he wouldn't be able to monopolize this room, but for now, it felt entirely like his space.
Sal spread out blank blueprint paper on the desk and neatly arranged the engraving tools next to it.
"Don't even dream about the sofa... I called dibs."
Upgrade opened the door, came in, dropped her bag, and threw herself onto the sofa.
She sighed and pointed toward the door with a pained expression.
"Could you close the door? I can't let other kids catch me playing hooky."
Sal laughed and closed the automatic door, creating their own space cut off from the workshop outside.
Stretching her legs out on the sofa, Upgrade looked at Sal and said.
"Chatfield is by far the best Controller I've seen in the field. He's received every combat-related award possible, and holds the record for the most tower clears among the faculty."
Her voice held no emotion.
"When he was an active hero, he was someone who ranked within the top 100. Any team he joined as a Controller would unconditionally win. It was accepted as truth that his team would win? He was someone who dominated the battlefield by any means necessary and brought the entire team back alive. So him coming here as a professor might seem like a huge asset from the academy's perspective... but the reality is completely different."
Sal burst into laughter.
It was hard to believe that the exhausted-looking man in that room just now was so amazing.
Of course, he had often seen unexpected figures possessing tremendous power... but Chatfield just looked like a burnt-out person.
His ability was certainly interesting, but Sal didn't quite understand how it could be useful for the entire team from a combat perspective.
Upgrade shook her head.
"Another non-believer here? Well, I understand. Compared to before, he's just in a shell-like state now. But I assure you, his skills are exactly the same as back then. He just returned from a mission yesterday, and he's already preparing for a portal assault with a strike team. He usually comes to the workshop to check if there are any usable Concept abilities among the designs we made. Thanks to that ability, his weapon selection range becomes incredibly wide. But seeing him so sensitive right now... it looks like it's going to be quite a tough assault."
Sal placed the tracking device on the desk and activated his Mythos Crafter ability.
Before enhancing or reconstructing it, he wanted to appraise it properly first.
Without turning his gaze to Upgrade, he quietly brought up his initial question again.
"Then... what subject does he teach? Is it perhaps a Controller Master Class or something?"
Upgrade burst into laughter, threw a blanket roughly over herself, and settled into a more comfortable position.
"Saying he 'teaches' is a bit much. It's more like... putting students in situations where learning comes as a bonus. The mission they just went on was intensive tower clearing training. He didn't just tell them to clear floors one by one, but made them run through the entire tower. The difficulty spikes sharply as the levels go up."
"The entire tower?"
"Yeah, the students who went on that mission have experience fighting monsters, but it was all in controlled environments until now. Headmaster Quest strongly opposed it. In the end, the United Guild Association won though. They want heroes, and while Chatfield's methods are terrible, the results are the best."
Sal's concentration broke completely.
"Tower clearing? They were only second years! Was... were there any casualties?"
Sal couldn't understand what he was hearing.
Putting novice students into a tower itself made no sense.
Just clearing one or two floors was crazy enough.
Upgrade sighed and looked at Sal.
"Didn't you listen to me? If it's Chatfield, everyone survives unconditionally. He's a golden talent fully backed by the United Guild Association, and he's the best in that field. The reason such a person looks like he's about to die right now? It's proof that he ran through that tower together with the students that much."
"By any chance, if he uses his Concept ability, can he create equipment directly based on blueprints?"
When Sal asked as if he couldn't believe it, Upgrade shook her head again.
"No, that would be too overpowered. If there's a blueprint he likes, he requests it to be crafted separately. And then he replicates it with his ability. That's why he gets so stressed when he sees unrealistic blueprints. It has to be something we can actually make with craftable materials. If he saw your sniper rifle blueprint, he probably would have fainted? Just imagining it is funny."
Sal found himself laughing along at Upgrade's mischievous laugh.
A brief silence flowed, and Sal focused on the tracking device again, bringing up its detailed information with his Appraisal ability.
Sal wanted to know exactly what kind of item he was dealing with right now.
The visor, hazy in color like black smoke, was inserted directly into a silver casing and structured to be worn over the user's right ear.
Sal grasped the structure and components with his eyes in minutes, but he felt strangely hollow.
'There's too little information.'
Compared to when he used the Analysis ability, the information he was seeing now was nothing but the outer shell.
The black crown he appraised for Divinity showed not only the materials but also the future evolution possibilities.
The lack of information stimulated Sal's will, further fueling his desire to create even better equipment.
Name: Quest Tracker
Origin: Crafted Item
Age: 5 Years
Rank: Unique
Size:
* Visor: 2 inches vertical × 2 inches horizontal
* Ear Mount: 4 inches vertical × 2 inches horizontal
Material: Refined System Essence | Obsidian Glass | Infused Silver
Attributes:
* Appraisal: Can appraise items up to Unique rank
* System: Can interpret abstract information from essence signals
* Network: Improves system interpretation ability by accessing information database
Abilities: Appraisal | System | Network
Power Source: Enhanced Core
Evolution Possibility: None
Quality: Good
Durability: 79%
Estimated Value: $140,000.00 ~ $160,000.00
"Seeing how quiet you are now... you've already started working on the tracker, haven't you?"
Upgrade said from across the room, wrapped tightly in her blanket.
Sal gave a thumbs up and activated the blueprint part, one of his Mythos Crafter abilities.
He had trouble calling up the blueprint in its current state because enhanced versions kept popping up first.
Sal had to return the tracker to Quest exactly as he received it, so he couldn't risk damaging the original or causing errors.
So he intended to craft a new one and then extract the System Essence from the current device, or ask Quest to share just a small amount of his ability.
...Then he suddenly paused.
'I don't need to ask the Headmaster, I can just replicate that ability myself, right?'
It was strange that he only just thought of something so obvious.
It seemed so simple that Sal thought there must be a catch.
He glanced at Upgrade and opened his mouth.
"You know I can replicate abilities, right?"
"Yeah."
Upgrade answered with a short sound, signaling him to continue.
"What if I replicate that ability and use its essence for crafting? To make a Quest Tracker, I need Refined System Essence. Would it be possible that way?"
Upgrade threw off the blanket, sprang up, and looked at Sal with a surprised expression.
"Wouldn't that just be treated as Skill Master Essence? That's your original ability anyway... But then again, when you create an ability, you use the threads of that ability. Then doesn't it become a completely new ability? Honestly, I don't know the system structure that well either. If you ask Professor Lombardi, you might get a better answer. But what I have to say is decided. You probably know it already too. Let's try it first and then judge."
She threw the blanket to one side, came to the front of the desk, and stood next to Sal.
Then she stared at the tracker for a long time and muttered.
"If you can replicate an Essence Signature and put it into equipment... the range of creations that can come from you is truly insane. My first recommendation is to get Alex's essence. If you make one coffee machine, he'll be unemployed immediately?"
She said it like a joke, but Sal genuinely gained a realization from those words.
He had been thinking only in terms of gear all along, but Upgrade's thinking had already moved on to daily necessities.
Sal didn't even want to recall how many Q-Credits he had spent on coffee until now.
Thinking about making a coffee machine himself, thoughts of the money he would save, no, the money he could earn, came to mind.
"When you made that shield-type arm guard back then, you used that girl's ability, right? The barrier gear used in the tournament."
Upgrade asked.
"How did you know that putting that ability in would produce that effect? Usually, gear abilities are a random draw every time you put them in. But you drew everything properly."
Sal shook his head.
"The Mythos Crafter ability did it all. I just imagined what I wanted, and it told me what materials to use. When I didn't have those materials... my essence filled in the empty spots. Hannah's Barrier Gauntlet was like that too. The materials were a mess, but it was made that way."
Upgrade looked at Sal with an expression of incomprehension, then shook her head.
"No, that's impossible, Sal. Can you bring up the blueprint again? Bring up a blueprint of gear made without proper materials or ability essence. And tell me how it's done."
Sal recalled the blueprints he had made one by one in his head and stopped at the Shield Guard.
Name: Shield Guard
Origin: Crafted Item
Age: Brand New
Rank: Uncommon (High)
Size: Length 8 inches | Circumference 9 inches (Adjustable)
Material: Refined Mythos Crafter Essence | Infused Iron
Attributes:
* Barrier: Creates a protective shield in front of the wearer
* Shock Nullification: Nullifies incoming attacks, reflects with a certain probability
Abilities: Barrier | Shock Nullification
Power Source: Basic Core | External Essence
Evolution Possibility: None
Quality: Excellent
Durability: 100%
Estimated Value: $3,000.00 ~ $4,500.00
As Sal read down the items one by one, Upgrade raised her hand to stop him.
"You just said Refined Mythos Crafter Essence. But looking at the ability description, there's nothing like Crafting, Appraisal, Restoration, or Upgrade in there. In my opinion... it seems you are using your own essence as a substitute for other essences. That explains how the barrier attribute you designed got into the gear. Unless you extracted that essence from Hannah. Could it be that your ability internally stores attributes you've encountered even once?"
Upgrade walked around the desk and continued speaking.
"It's difficult to get an attribute beyond Shock Nullification with just Infused Iron. So ultimately, the key is the essence. Of course, you probably used a few parts made by other crafters in the Workshop, but that doesn't explain how the exact attributes you wanted came out."
Sal nodded, but inside he felt a bit daunted.
Because he thought using essence to fill in lacking parts was something any crafter would naturally do.
Upgrade circled the desk a second time and stopped walking.
"Then let's try an experiment. Try making something with an attribute you've never encountered before. You said you saw Captain Chatfield's ability threads? Try crafting something with that Concept ability."
Then, as she looked around the room, her gaze landed on the tracker.
"Perfect. You have that tracker blueprint you're making right now. Since you've already seen Analysis and System abilities, aside from those, try to see if you can make it with the Concept ability. You haven't used that ability directly yet."
Sal activated the Mythos Crafter ability and brought up various derivative versions of the current blueprint.
"Uh...? It's not working."
He commanded the system to construct the blueprint centered on the Concept ability, but there was no reaction at all.
No matter how hard he tried, a structure implementing the Concept ability was not generated.
Upgrade smiled slightly seeing the frown appear on Sal's face.
They had finally discovered the limitation of this ability along with the answer to what they had been wondering about.
"Then this time, let's try with an ability you haven't crafted with directly but know well. Design a tracker with Divinity's ability."
Sal's eyes widened.
When he did as Upgrade said, the Mythos Crafter ability reacted immediately.
A gear blueprint for an Oracle Tracker capable of predicting the future floated before his eyes.
"I can see how to make it!"
Sal shouted with an excited voice, but Upgrade snapped her fingers to break his concentration.
When Sal blinked in surprise and looked at her, she pointed at the tracker.
"What you can do with your ability might be endless, but I will absolutely not let you take shortcuts. You're learning properly from the basics, one by one. Got it?"
Sal smiled, nodded, and soon immersed himself in his work.