Universe's End

Chapter 264: Chakrams and Whispers

“I’ve got an idea,” Rory said, shooting upright as Eia’s head raised, looking down at Rory, who was resting on Eia’s coiled body like a beanbag chair.

“And?”

Snapping his fingers, several golden circles appeared, as circular saw-like projections slowly manifested.

“So, these are probably some of my most advanced projections because I take extra effort in using higher-grade pneuma in the projection effort. They last far longer and even operate semi-autonomously.”

As if to prove a point, the projected chakrams began to whirl overhead, like a flock of seagulls. Except inanimate. And metal. And not birds.

So not like seagulls at all.

“And your idea is?”

“What if I created some overlapped items?”

“Overlapped?”

“Yeah, like, I construct a framework of physical material, and then I fill in the rest with projection. In theory, it can be more advanced than any regular projection.”

“Why not simply craft the full item then?”

“Modularity,” Rory said. “But a good question nonetheless, and the reason I don’t think I considered it much until now. I can fling projections around like projectiles, but my ability to manipulate physical items is far less. I can still launch them and direct them to some extent-”

“But to a limit.”

“Bingo,” Rory said. “But if I make the framework of a weapon out of skybound materials, add some runes, then fill them in with projections? Presto!”

“Is this really the best idea you could come up with?”

“No, not at all,” Rory snorted. “But my fortress project needs time that I don’t have, and I’m still not quite there with skybound chanting to really feel ready. Then there is the Project X-”

“Project X?”

“That’s what I’m calling it. My super-secret idea for super murder.”

“A weapon, just explained most childishly.”

“Let me have my fun,” Rory sighed. He was purposely being coy and childish about that project because it kept his mind from focusing on what he wanted it for.

Killing his Bane. For good.

Thoughts of his Bane were like a dose of venom through his veins, and so Rory quickly pushed them aside until he was ready to handle that one.

“Anyway, Project X is also in the works, but much like the fortress project, it needs a lot of time and some materials to be ready.”

“And your armor?”

“Another bit of a weird case,” Rory said. “Managing to increase the grade of the scales from the Tyrant of Earth and Scales to Aberrant Grade from Rare is probably close to a one in a million stroke of luck. Whether it's that specific of a rarity also needs to take into consideration variables outside of the regular norms, but as I-”

“I understand your point, don’t get off track.”

“Right, right,” Rory nodded. “My point being, on paper, could I make better armor? Yes, by a large margin. But the sheer significance of the materials used carries the armor; it's stronger than it should be. I have ideas for my next set of armor, drawn from my prior work on Kai Rong’s equipment and Apostolos’s Daybreak armor, but they're not yet fully developed. I’m thinking I can probably stretch out the usage of my current armor until tier nine.”

“It never ceases to amuse me how you swing between manic focus and laissez-faire attitude regarding your projects.”

“Call it the wisdom of aging,” Rory snorted. “When I was younger, I felt the desperate need to have gear to survive, because I didn’t have much else going for me. I’d have to be blind not to understand how things have changed. A project to create new armor isn’t because the armor is an absolute necessity; it's my own interest. Anyway, the better the gear, the more I need to punch up to compensate for the increased ease from stronger equipment. Case in point, if I offered to make you some personal snake-sized equipment to make your life easier, would you accept?”

“No. What is the point in hunting if it is made even easier than it already is?”

“Exactly. The only exceptions are when facing enemies that specifically require my best.”

“Such as a territory alpha.”

“Correct,” Rory agreed, before briefly frowning. “Mostly. Even they can be rendered ineffective if planned properly.”

The Thunderous Lord had been a perfect example of a monster that normally would have been too strong for even a founder to best in one-on-one combat in most situations. Double the founders and add in an overwhelming first strike, though, and the terrifying might of a territory alpha was still slaughtered with little chance to resist.

Though in fairness, can’t exactly have Rods from God armed for any given fight…. Unless? Actually, wait, let's not get ahead of ourselves for now.

“So, these new chakrams are your entertainment until you have more downtime or a bigger fight to prepare for.”

“See, you understand,” Rory said, snapping his fingers as the projected chakrams buzzing around vanished.

“And the reason you’re lounging around right now is…?”

“I’m avoiding their festivities. They’re currently celebrating the downfall of the Thunderous Lord, but honestly, it wasn’t a big enough deal for me to pat myself on the back. Same with Zoey, she decided to wander the forest floor below. I don’t even think she is doing anything, probably just meandering around.”

“Understandable. Well, if you wouldn’t mind keeping the volume down, I’m going back to napping.”

“Sorry for waking you up,” Rory said as the oversized snake lowered her head, wrapping herself back up into a tight ball as Rory stared up into the night sky, keeping to himself on his own private asteroid ‘island.’

Tomorrow, let’s see if we can hammer it out in a single day.

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” Analissa said, looking somewhat confused.

“Learning opportunity,” Rory said as if it were that simple.

“But, I do inscription.”

“Uh-huh,” Rory nodded.

Unlawfully taken from NovelBin, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“And you said no apprentices.”

“Uh-huh,” Rory repeated.

“And you said-”

“Uh-huh,” Rory repeated once more, cutting her off. “Learn.”

With that finalized, Rory began working, showing off to his audience of one.

In truth, Rory had invited her for one reason, and one reason only: both her inscription skill and her vocation had evolved. No longer was she saddled with the base ‘Runic Inscription’ skill or ‘Runic Inscriptionist’ vocation. No, it had become something quite a bit more compelling.

First Scribe of the First Era

Before civilization, before established thought, there was only the time of the Precursors and their peers. Like wellsprings of knowledge, from these original ancient leaders, techniques and learnings flowed, growing established and understood as time passed. Amongst these, Inscription had seen some of the most refinement. As civilization begins to flourish and the original chapter of prehistory closes, the First Era is ushered in by those who appear as the torchbearers for the future. As the first to create a rune of the First Era, you claim the title of the first torchbearer of First Era inscription.

It was a vocational description that was fancy in the way that his own Architect of the Precursor vocation was, just far more narrowed.

The First Era. Is that what it's called now? And what specifically was the turning point of the ‘Precursor Era’ into the First Era?

Questions for later; the point was that after he’d gotten an update from Miguel about Analissa earlier today, he’d decided to invite her to watch.

Miguel himself was busy working on the skyblazer suit tasks that Rory had delegated to the main. Plus, a bit of variety within one’s work was good for ascension progress.

Alright, that aside, where to start?

Gravite was a nice material, while not as strong as true promethium, its artificial nature seemed to make it more of a blank slate when it came to acceptance of skychanting.

Promethium was, as always, the physically strongest material he had in any ‘bulk’ capacity. But it was strongly opposed to being made skybound; its deep-seated volcanic and magmatic nature made it impossible to convince with his current skybound chanting skills.

Night Copper was harder to come by than the other two options, and far slower to produce than gravite or the much more straightforward alloying required to make promethium.

There were always the crimson steel variants, but they were inferior in toughness to the first three options and were of an uncommon grade compared to the rare-grade gravite, promethium, or night copper. Vermillion Titanium, the strongest of the crimson steel variants, was still only an uncommon grade after all.

Plus, he hadn’t worked with Vermillion Titanium for quite some time, and Rory wasn’t even certain if he had much, if any, strewn about in his inventory.

What if I tried the best of both worlds?

The problem with promethium was that it was strongly associated with the ground and earthly concepts. Crimson steel variants were too weak. But blood also had the benefit of being an inherently alchemical concept; its corruptive nature made that certain.

I might be able to isolate those elements within promethium and use my blood affinity to convert them into blood-essence elements.

Liking the idea, Rory raised his hand as a mobile forge began to manifest itself, Earth Soul and projection magic working in tandem to construct a flash forge from his asteroid.

Pillars, reflective mirrors, and forge in place, Rory snapped his fingers as fire sparked to life within the forge, a deep crimson as Rory utilized bloodfire magic. The added concentrated heat from the reflective mirrors atop the pillars would add the extra heat that bloodfire naturally lacked.

And now for the metal itself.

Selecting several bars of promethium from his inventory, Rory tossed them inside, his blood-bound hammer appearing in his left hand before he tossed out a generic anvil as well.

Pulsing his alchemical transmutation skill, Rory focused it through his bloodfire, the metal appearing in his ‘mind’ like it was under a telescope, an innate sense born from years of practice and practical application of the combination of the bloodfire linked to his innate affinity and the usage of alchemical transmutation in its ‘active’ state.

Promethium was dense, which had been a defining trait for as long as he had worked with the material. While that was great for strength and structural integrity, it made transmutation extremely difficult, as the concepts at play were that much harder to ‘pull apart’ from one another, its physical density mirroring its conceptual density.

Difficult was not impossible.

You know, I’ve got a sudden idea.

Perhaps it was from having Analissa in attendance, but with a sudden spark of ingenuity, Rory popped a piece of paper out from his inventory, a single thought enough to slice it into several rectangular slips around the size of his hand. Stylus appearing from his inventory, Rory slid the tip against his palm as a single line of blood welled up, only to be siphoned into the stylus. With his stylus inked up, Rory scribbled on one of the small rectangular slips of paper. As he did, Analissa, who’d been clearly forcing herself to pay attention, suddenly focused in as something that actually interested her occurred.

Three slips later, Rory held them up in his hand like he was holding a hand sign. Spreading his fingers, Rory sent a quick pulse of pneuma, burning off some of his own vital energy, toward the slips of paper, as all three instantly exhausted themselves like pieces of paper burning away in a flash fire.

“What was that?” Analissa asked, unable to hold back her curiosity.

“A haunch,” Rory answered. “Extinguishing physical items has always been a source of power, a system of significance exchange if it helps you think of it. Are you familiar with magic circles?”

“No, not really,” Analissa said truthfully.

“Alright, bound circles work for this explanation as well,” Rory said, altering his explanation slightly. “A bound circle can have varying effects or whatnot if attached with runes or parallel functioning bound circles or channels, correct?”

“Yes,” Analissa nodded.

“So, magic circles are those, but applied on the fly; you construct a metaphysical version of a bound circle.”

Showcasing exactly what he meant, Rory briefly summoned a bound circle around him, projecting a small crystal that vanished after a moment.

“Vital energy, vitality, is another resource we can draw upon. It’s easier for me than most, given that one of my affinities is blood and, by extension, blood essence, I’ve been playing with my vital energy for a long time. Anyway, the point is, by funneling pneuma and vital energy into a medium, in that case, those slips of paper, I can ‘store’ magic for on-the-fly use. Or that’s the theory. In this case, I used it right away, though I intended to use them right away anyway, as the slips of paper were inherently unstable as a physical medium. What’s special here, aside from potentially being able to ‘store’ the magic, is that by injecting my own vital energy and then burning the entire thing up, it operates on a similar level as sacrificing a physical weapon in return for one-time use power.”

“The inscriptions upon those slips of paper seemed fairly simple,” Analissa pointed out.

“Yes, proof of concept since I had the idea on the spot,” Rory chuckled. “Didn’t want to blow myself up in the middle of working on something else. Anyway, they were simply meant as boosts to targeting the elements I’m looking to isolate within this promethium,” Rory pointed toward the forge. “Rather minute effect, maybe a difference of a percent from what I can tell, but I also didn’t go very hard.”

“So, in theory, could someone skilled in inscription do something more advanced?”

“Oh yeah,” Rory said with a grin. “Congrats, you got to witness an accidental spark of genius. The fact that it worked even in proof-of-concept is enough to tell me Eon will be happy to play along going forward.”

“And what exactly was that?” Analissa asked.

“Hmm, good question,” Rory said, thinking for a moment before deciding to go with old reliable and avoiding reinventing the wheel. “Talismans.”

Pulling a pad of paper from inside the folds of her clothes, Analissa instantly began to jot down notes.

“And to think I haven’t even gotten into what I actually thought you could learn from yet,” Rory chuckled as he turned back to his mini-project.

Between his own skill, literal skills, and metaphorically speaking, and the small boost provided by the burnt-up talisman, Rory managed to isolate some of the earth elements within the promethium. As much as he wanted to simply select and delete the elements like they were a risky text never to be sent, that wasn’t in the cards with as tightly bound together as the elements of promethium were, at least not with his on-the-fly metallurgical alchemy. Unable to do that, Rory instead ‘grasped’ the earth-aspect elements of the promethium within his bloodfire, the heat of the bloodfire softening it to reshape as the blood aspects of the bloodfire began to invade, altering it into a shape Rory found more fitting. As Rory worked, one thing struck him as odd, something he’d never really noticed before.

Melody.

Perhaps it was from his time discovering skybound chanting, but Rory could swear he almost heard a sort of tune or melody. Still, it was so soft, fainter than even the words of the wind, that Rory couldn’t even be certain that it existed anywhere other than his imagination, like a faint speck that only existed at the furthest corners of one’s peripheral vision.

Pretty certain I’m not losing my mind, so definitely something to follow there, and further support that there is more to skybound chanting, or I guess just ‘chanting’ than meets the eye.

Whatever the case, Rory could barely even call himself a skybound chanter; there wasn’t a shot in heaven or hell that he was going to be able to do anything with the almost imaginary melody outside of simply acknowledging that it might exist.

Whatever the case, after nearly an hour carefully manipulating the properties of the promethium, Rory used his hammer to physically shape the metal, taking on a circular, somewhat hollow shape.

“Alright,” Rory said with a sigh as he wiped at his brow, the metal still glowing. “That’s the boring part done, at least for you.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it’s time I show you a little bit of some active inscription.”