Blacksmith vs. the System 284

The decision to start expanding toward the East Coast was a monumental one, one that shifted our whole paradigm of operation, one that required us to bet the future of our city. But, they had to do that without their king.

I was busy with another experiment.

It wasn’t just a selfish desire. For the first phase of assault, keeping my whereabouts hidden was a critical strategic advantage. While the strategic situation had been a mess, there was no arguing that I had slain nine Ascended warriors directly, elevating me into a strategic threat.

Especially since I achieved it without bullying them by outspending them through the dungeon.

It was a strategic choice I welcomed, as it gave me a chance to experiment with my latest skill, one that had been transformed from my Mana Detection.

Void Sentry.

I activated it, and the world changed, allowing me to see void energy, which I previously referred to as mysterious, corrupting energy. Though, unlike the wilderness, void energy didn’t stick to any surface like a disgusting layer of grease. The dungeon gates were pulling the void energy aggressively, like giant, grotesque air purifiers.

“At least I don’t have to deal with OCD,” I muttered. I had dealt with enough about it, giving me an overwhelming phobia of flying as a coping mechanism. I couldn’t turn into a neat freak.

For a while, I did nothing but watch as the void energy devoured the dungeon gate, trying to get a general sense of its structure. Unlike the shifting nature of the mana, void energy was something more solid and mercurial as it spilled down from the sky.

I didn’t have any sudden inspiration about it as I watched the energies, but that didn’t mean there was no benefit.

[Void Sentry (Mythic) 1 -> 15]

Once the improvement slowed down, I stepped to a balcony, one with several privacy spells to keep me hidden from any spy, finally getting a glimpse of what was going on.

The moment I did that, a shiver passed through me. I couldn’t help it. The skill helped me to interpret void energy as a visual, and what it looked like was a black rain, one that poured down from a giant hole in the sky, painting the world black.

It was not good. I would go as far as to say that it looked terrible.

Incidentally, it allowed me to see exactly what heretics had done to increase the void energies in the environment. It looked like Earth had some kind of barrier that resisted void energy, which seems to be about ten miles in altitude, and whatever heretics had done punched huge holes in it.

“Should I thank them for their restraint?” I muttered as I looked at the size of the holes in the sky. While there were many holes that void energy spilled through, most of the barrier was still in place, showing that a void energy invasion could be much worse.

It was either a condition of their alliance with Drakka, who didn’t want to destroy everything, or whatever heretics used wasn’t widely available.

Probably a combination of the two.

“The next aspect,” I said as I returned to my room, took the underground tunnels to the edge of the city, where dungeon gates weren’t able to absorb all of the void energy. I wanted to see how it accumulated.

Just like I expected, it did stick to every bit of surface, but it didn’t corrupt anything lifeless. But whenever a beast walked over corruption, they pulled the energies like a magnet capturing iron dust, the corrupting influence slowly infusing their being. It was different from other people. The void energy was directly repelled away.

I highly suspected it was one of the functions of the System, repelling Void directly; well, unless someone actively sabotaged it just like the methods of the heretics, likely leaving them vulnerable for further infusion, ending in madness.

Among all, the reaction of the plants that surprised me the most was. They weren’t repelling the energy like humans, but the void energy was rushing desperately to them. The void energy stuck over them, a minuscule amount seeping into their presence.

“It is something I have to pay attention to in the future,” I muttered. It was interesting, but not interesting enough to take a part in my growing list of tasks. The other part was how the void reacted with the ground. It tried to seep directly to it, only to be repelled back by a force. It meant that the stronger the concentration of void energy, the deeper the corruption.

“Is this why beasts mostly avoid underground locations,” I said, but I didn’t feel particularly emboldened by it. Because, it had the potential to change when the void energy infusion had surpassed a certain point.

Not a fun realization. The whole construction philosophy we had relied on limited the risk of underground attacks, and even our metal floors were there to prevent attacks from other humans.

[Void Sentry (Mythic) 15 -> 21]

“I need to make so many changes,” I said once I finished the initial examination. As for what those changes would be, only further experimentation could decide.

I returned to my room for my next experiment. One that I was not entirely sure what to target. Ichor, or the dungeon.

Ichor, as a target of experiment, was obvious. It was a critical part of our future strategy, one that was critical for Ascension. Not to mention, we suspected it was necessary to reach the next stage of the skills, something I was already having trouble with.

But, it was also a highly fragile material that dispersed the moment its perfect isolation was broken, giving me very little time to examine it. And, there was no guarantee that my new Identity variant would work on it.

There was a chance that I would waste at least one, maybe multiple vials, in the process.

The other option was to focus on the dungeons. My previous experience with dungeons was different, limited both by my lack of information, and my limited toolset. The former issue was slowly becoming less and less of an issue. And for the latter, I hoped my enhanced detection from Void Sentry would help.

“It’s no time to be frugal,” I said. As much as the idea of wasting a bottle of Ichor bothered me, understanding its nature was equally important. I reached for a safe, and removed the bottle that I had requested for that exact purpose.

The vial was deceptively small. Despite its mysterious glow, it didn’t feel like something that would elevate people to the next level. I shook the bottle a little, but Ichor reacted to the movement weirdly, like it was not wholly physical, but unlike mana, it wasn’t fully incorporeal either.

I placed the vial on the desk, but before opening it, I had reinforced the area with many wards, including inferior variants of the isolation wards I copied from it.

And, I opened the bottle. The moment I did so, Ichor started to float and expand, losing its coherency in an instant. I activated Void Sentry, trying to get a glimpse of its true nature.

It failed. Spectacularly. No sudden realization about its nature, no library of information. No reaction.

Then, my eyes widened as I noticed something. One second after I touched it with Void Sentry, it darted to me, and seeped under my skin. I couldn’t even attempt to stop it, because I felt my skill engaging with it, like touching water with a dry fabric, absorbing the water hungrily.

But, before I could make that decision, two things happened. First, Ichor hit the skill, and bounced back, like there was a sense of incompatibility between the two, likely something to be bypassed.

Then, my connection with the dungeon. It flared, absorbing Ichor faster than I could react.

I reached the connection, tense, trying to see if there was a crisis.

The dungeon continued to exist, just the same, like nothing had changed. “Well, that’s one way dungeon connection might prevent Ascension,” I muttered, wondering why I felt no change.

The dungeon just absorbed it like mana, but it had no impact.

It was treated as some kind of hostile ingredient, and the dungeon tried to protect me.

Or, was it just a matter of scale, one unit of Ichor having no impact on the dungeon?

“Too bad I have no way of answering that,” I said as I closed my eyes, and tried to catalogue what I was able to glimpse about Ichor. The skill might not have given me any information, but that didn’t mean it was completely useless. My Perception still lets me catch a lot of details, and Wisdom allows me to remember them.

It was just … mostly useless. Certainly not worth risking wasting another bottle in the hopes of solving it. Whatever Ichor was, it was not something I could solve without getting a more consistent source.

“It’s time to focus on the dungeon,” I muttered as I crossed my legs, and looked inward.