Universe's End

Chapter 204: Milk and Cigarettes

"So."

"So," Rory repeated, smiling smugly at Apostolos.

"You gonna share?"

"Share what?" Rory asked innocently.

"Oh, I don't know. The clock? The 'totally-not-night-sky' reality warping? How you took fourteen uses of Sun God's Smite, fused together, might I add, and tore it apart? Even with your full attributes, that's the sort of attack you wouldn't want to freely take."

"Uh-huh," Rory nodded in agreement.

"You're an ass," Apostolos grumbled. "Please?"

"See, was that so hard?" Rory laughed. "Domain skill."

"Yeah, I sort of caught on to that, not what I meant when I was asking for you to share." Apostolos said shaking his head. "No one has ever seen a domain skill like that before. Usually they form more gradually."

"Uh huh," Rory repeated.

"You're an ass," Apostolos also repeated.

"Fineeee, if you're going to give me the puppy dog eyes."

"I was doing no such thing."

"It was just a series of tradeoffs," Rory answered honestly. "You've shown the ability to do as much; you did it earlier in the fight with slowing down your own sunlight beams. In this case, I took it a step further. I didn't just limit how it physically behaved, I set strict conditions that I needed to remain firmly planted, stuck to one point in time and space."

"Hence the clock, and why you seemed to refuse to budge."

"Bingo," Rory said, shooting Apostolos the finger guns. "Between that restriction, and the fact that my domain was rebuilt using only my affinities and a time limit, busting out a domain with my attributes capped at tier seven was possible. Mind you without the attribute capping I can lift one of those restrictions, the time limit, but it still burns through pneuma like a mother fucker."

"Uh huh," Apostolos said, his turn with Rory's favorite mumble. "Wait… time limit? Meaning you couldn't hold that domain any longer?"

"Well, I still had five or six seconds, but yeah, pretty much."

"I hate you," Apostolos sighed. "Are you telling me, I walked straight into your trap?"

"Basically," Rory laughed. "Knowing you, I knew that if you saw the timer counting down and having made little progress elsewhere, you'd go for the flashy final move. Otherwise, you could have just waited it out and used the attack after, and I pretty much would have been fucked, forced to uncap my attributes, at which point it would be your win on technicality."

"E.O.N damn you Rory," Apostolos grumbled, though there was no actual venom in his voice. His face was scrunched up, as if he'd taken a bite of something exceptionally bitter.

"Using your head isn't just about cognition investment," Rory said, savoring the moment.

"Bleh," Apostolos stuck his tongue out childishly before shaking his head. "I got played, but that doesn't make it any less valid of a win on your side of things. I'll do my best to learn from this lesson."

"Ehh, no need to get all serious on me," Rory chuckled, slapping him on the back.

"Well, there is one thing I need to get serious with you about," Apostolos said after a moment, his mouth a straight line.

"What's that?" Rory said, his own smile fading slightly.

"How soon until you leave?"

"Ahh, shit," Rory rubbed the back of his neck, grumbling. "You could tell?"

"You've been quite the dutiful father the last few years, you will hear nothing but approval from me on that." Apostolos said. "But I know outside of that you've been hellishly bored."

"I had a few minor projects to entertain me," Rory countered, "There was that stuff with the Rong clan bloodwood grove. Two-year project right there. Taking an open space and expanding it without a clear anchor like a void diamond wasn't easy you know!"

"And the Rong clan absolutely will not stop talking about how honored and thankful they are for that," Apostolos sighed. "But that was probably the most fun you've had since you've been in Ehkorrus, at least since the year one projects."

"There were also the new railguns," Rory pointed out.

"You just liked having an excuse to fire them off like a madman," Apostolos sighed. "Anyway, those are emergency defenses, and even then, they're not nearly as warping as they once were what with tier eights looming in the future less than three decades for me."

"Less than three decades if you don't lounge about," Rory corrected.

"Stop changing the subject," Apostolos said. "Roxy is eighteen, she has her vocation, and you've been otherwise bored out of your mind. It's pretty obvious, knowing you, that you plan to leave soon."

"Fine, you got me," Rory sighed. "I was thinking a month, maybe less. Probably less."

"Anywhere in mind?" Apostolos asked.

"It's been about a decade or so since I last spoke with Zoey or Eia, they're both probably beginning to just start noticing my absent by now."

"It's a bit disgusting how you all can treat a decade like it's a weekend jaunt," Apostolos sighed. "But alright, you intend to return. Won't that be difficult?"

"Well, no." Rory answered honestly. "Years ago, I had made a point of constructing obelisks throughout our volcanic base that I would in the future be able to specifically 'target' if I ever attempted to return to that exact location. That was before my Coordinate affinity, so at this point it should be relatively simple to 'lock' the coordinates into my mind and simply step through the Null Window, and presto, I'm back."

"I see," Apostolos muttered. "And the eventual wave one hundred? That's only slightly over two decades away."

"You'll either be peak tier seven, or tier eight by then," Rory said. "Plus, the defenses of Ehkorrus are far more substantial now."

Thanks to Tsarina and her hive, all three of Ehkorrus's walls had been transformed into something akin to coral reefs or sea anemones. The material that had once made them up had been recycled and reformed into the walls of thick vegetation sturdier than what they'd been before after assimilating with the roots of the 'Grand Ehkorrian Sequoia' as the citizens tended to call it. Furthermore, they sat alongside a waxy substance that had layered and lacquered between vines and bark that could absorb weak monsters as fuel.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Then there was the fact that the walls themselves were, of course, hives, for a rather horrifying gallery of bug monsters that had all been spawned under Tsarina, ranging from tier five to tier six, they could rush out and overwhelm even higher tier monsters.

Even without Rory around, he felt confident Ehkorrus would be fine handling the waves until wave one hundred on its own.

As for wave one hundred?

"But if it makes you feel better, I will be here for wave one hundred at minimum," Rory answered, placing his hand to his chest. "I swear it on the non-existent grave of my grandparents."

"Fine, I believe you," Apostolos sighed. "But there is another related thing I wanted to talk about. As we figured you'd be leaving-"

"We? Who is we?"

"What, you think Irene couldn't guess as much?" Apostolos asked, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, we figured you'd be leaving, so we put together a list of things we would like you to try to get your hands on."

Pulling a piece of paper from his inventory, an inventory Rory had finally got around to making for Apostolos, he handed it over.

Scanning it, Rory finally shook his head, a disbelieving half-smile on his face.

"A shopping list. The Lord Founder is leaving, and your farewell is a shopping list?"

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Apostolos said. "Have you checked the Sovereign interface at any point in the last few years?"

"No, not really," Rory admitted. After having taken care of the wall improvements, Rory had once more dusted his hands of any city managing over the last few years.

"Well, we've had a pneuma problem."

"Really? You shouldn't. We've got so much land passively drawing pneuma in for us, plus all those Pneuma crushers, plus the overall quality of the pneuma is so much higher than those earliest years."

"And that's the problem," Apostolos sighed. "We've been full for some time now."

"Full?" Rory raised his eyebrows. "But that would require-"

"The full saturation of a tier eight monster core, yeah, we're aware," Apostolos chuckled. "It's taken decades, but we've finally reached the point where we produce enough excess pneuma that we can even fill a tier eight core in only a few years."

"Huh," Rory folded his arms one over the other at the revelation. Ehkorrus had been using the same tier eight core as its heart for decades. It had been a reward, or more like compensation, for being used as a Guinee pig by Eon revolving around the question of 'carrying,' though Rory hadn't known it at the time. Pit against a tier eight monster when he wasn't even tier six, Rory had managed to put the damn monster down using the insane firepower of the mundane physics of a railgun alongside burning up a monster core. Given that monster cores were exponentially rarer coming from monsters below tier seven, it had been a rather 'expensive' cost to defeat the monster.

At the time, Rory had felt rather cheated and used, not yet aware of just how damn valuable a tier eight monster core was at that point. It would be like being tricked into participating in a test where you were forced to spend a hundred bucks on something, only to receive a bar of gold as compensation, just without knowing what gold was.

Off the back of that reward, Ehkorrus had largely seen smooth sailing ever since.

But now Ehkorrus had finally reached the point where a tier eight monster core wasn't enough. It wasn't a bad problem to have, but it was still technically a problem.

"We figured since you're tier eight, you'll probably be able to get more tier eight cores at this point. What we're looking for, is either enough cores to 'upgrade' our current settlement heart, or a literal upgrade, such as a core from an Alpha variant or something."

"Yeah, I guess that's fair." Rory said, looking at the next item on the list. "Something to supplement Night Copper. That's a little vague."

"We're also aware of that," Apostolos said. "The reality is, Night Copper is a rare-grade material we can produce all on our own, sure, but it's also slow to make. We're growing faster and faster, meaning the demand for rare-grade materials will only grow. We simply don't have enough. Tier sevens are valuable, even if they're perfectly average tier sevens. We don't want to risk losing any because they're stuck with only uncommon-grade materials. Inverted Steel is easy to produce and strong for an uncommon-grade material, but it's still uncommon-grade."

"Hmm," Rory frowned. That was significantly harder. Promethium was the easy option, but he wasn't about to spend the next few years turning himself into slave labor digging and making the stuff just to haul it back.

He'd need more hands on deck for that.

Which is why, as his eyes glanced down at the next thing on the list, Rory figured it was the perfect time to bring it up.

"Bring several promising tier sevens for training." Rory looked up as he read it. "How many we are talking?"

"Six or seven?" Apostolos glanced upward as he thought about it. "We've already got an idea of who we'd like to suggest, and you should be passingly familiar with each of them."

"Being?"

"As representative of the Elite Four, Kai Rong, first and foremost. She's the lowest ranked, so she will be least missed."

"Makes sense. Who else?"

"Flair, Harrison, Everett, Rana, Morales, Jharrel."

Apostolos wasn't wrong, Rory was passingly familiar with each of those names, every single one of them had been some of the 'promising' contenders in yearly tournaments over the last few years, and even beyond from what Apostolos had told him of the past tournaments before his return.

"Alright," Rory agreed, before sticking one hand out. "On one condition."

"Oh?" Apostolos raised an eyebrow.

"I want to bring a few artisans and workers along."

"Why, you should- oh. Laborers."

"Laborers." Rory confirmed with a laugh. "It will still be good for them; I'll make sure to help educate them as repayment."

"Honestly, depending on who is asked, they'd probably view the opportunity to go as payment in itself. You planning on bringing Roxy?"

"Fuck no." Rory instantly spat out. "She's tier one. That environment would outright kill her. No, I need artisans who are no lower than tier five, and even then, I'll still be shielding them from the environment, but at least if anything were to go wrong, they wouldn't instantly die."

"Noted," Apostolos said. "Tier five crafters are far less common than tier five adventurers, I should mention that. While artisans themselves are more common, they tier up far slower."

"I'm aware." Rory said.

"Just confirming. I'll have to discuss it with Irene and Jed, but my guess is the number will probably be in the same ballpark as our tier sevens."

"Acceptable," Rory answered. Knowing the environment that they'd be exposed to, and some of the stuff he'd likely have them working on, they'd probably find themselves tiering up in short order.

Glancing at the final item on the list, it was less of an 'item' and more of a request.

A request which Rory was planning on doing anyway.

"Stable route of travel between Ehkorrus and your other location." Rory read out loud.

"I understand that might not be the easiest ask."

"You'd be correct."

"But opening alternate routes of travel to entirely new locations is likely to become a necessity in the future if we want to broaden what is achievable."

"Uh huh," Rory nodded. "Sort of was the plan."

"And I know that- huh?"

"Yeah," Rory wagged a finger in the air. "To be frank, the method I used to return to Ehkorrus wouldn't work for others, it was far from a pleasant experience at that was with me being near the very peak of tier seven. I'm not one hundred percent certain of my future plan in that regard, but I have a strong belief that it should be possible to form a sort of 'network' bound together by void bridges or pathways that circumvent the limitations of physical space. While I'll also consider that the external factors such as- did you zone out?"

"Yeah, purposely," Apostolos said, making sure it was clear he was trying not to listen to Rory's lecture. "All I need to know is you plan to, and you believe its possible."

"You really were an awful student," Rory sighed as he thought back to memories of Apostolos as a child.

"I did what I was supposed to."

"Letter of the law, but not the spirit," Rory sighed.

"Sure, whatever that means," Apostolos chuckled. "One other issue."

"Yes?"

"Please don't keep our people locked away for twenty years. Many of them have families here, after all. Also you'll be taking some of our best and brightest with you, I think Ehkorrus would rather we didn't lose them for too long."

"Worst case scenario I'll be able to shuttle some of them back with me the way I originally returned." Rory said off handedly. "They won't like it, but if its only one or two, it should be workable."

"That works I suppose," Apostolos said with a nod before crossing his arms.

"What?" Rory asked.

"You haven't mentioned any of this to Roxy, have you?"

"I-"

"Didn't think so," Apostolos sighed.

"I didn't even answer yet!"

"You were going to make an excuse; you had your excuses face on."

"You don't know that!"

In response, Apostolos stared at him flatly.

"Fine," Rory grumbled. "No, I have not."

"Well, perfect timing then."

"Excuse me?"

"Send her in," Apostolos said, muttering into a small button-looking object he pulled from his inventory.

"Send who in?" Rory asked, his smug energy from his victory gone.

"Who else? Your daughter, of course."

Standing up, Apostolos made for the exit, and just as he was about to open the door, it slammed open, smacking Apostolos in the nose.

"Oh, sorry, Uncle 'Los!" Roxy said as Apostolos waved it off.

"It's fine, not like that could have hurt me anyway." Turning back around, Apostolos glanced at Rory with a twinkle in his eyes. "Have fun."

Leaving Rory alone with his daughter, Rory could only curse Apostolos mentally.

The bastard got the win in the end.

Because it was time to have a tough conversation.