II-36 Arsenal

A Pathbearer is more than their own skills, their team, their strategy. 

A Pathbearer is also their equipment.

Your equipment will keep you alive. It will make you better. It will shore up your weaknesses and enhance your strengths.

If you have the right piece of equipment, you can face a Pathbearer a Tier above you—even beat them decisively. Indeed, a middling Pathbearer granted a Legendary weapon or armor could prevail against incredible odds, even when their personal power is lacking. But understand that this is not a guarantee. No, this is merely a possibility of victory offered when there was none before.

And that’s the main benefit of equipment: New possibility.

But understand that it works the other way as well. A Legendary weapon can be failed by a middling Pathbearer. These situations end with the weapon taken from the weak Pathbearer by a more deserving wielder. So understand that you do not end where your equipment begins, and it does not extend beyond you. 

You are the wielder and it helps you prevail. Understand the weapons and armor you possess, understand what you need, what you lack, and you can go far.

And should you be fortunate, the system will reward you. It may bestow upon you a blade when your offense is lacking, or offer you an instrument to stop Jump Mages from ambushing you if you had no recourse before. Perhaps even a shield may be granted as a boon if you are fragile and wanting in defense.

But whatever the case, do not rely on the system to reward you, seek out what you require. Your life is your responsibility, and that is why, above all, any Pathbearer who refuses to see themselves properly equipped for their task will not be ascending for long.

And regardless of what you receive, remember who is the wielder and who is wielded…

-The Paths of Ascension, Essential Reading at Phoenix Academy of The Twilight Republic

II-36

Arsenal

“Keep—keep her away from me. I’ll do anything. Don’t touch me… I’ll do anything. Please, just keep her away. Keep her away. Don’t let her touch my mind again. Please don’t let her touch my mind again!”

It was a surreal sight, watching the almost 200-meter-long Dynamancer dragon grovel and beg. Its claws dug through clumps of dirt, and it wept like a sobbing, broken child. Just fifty meters away, its Inertium pike lay buried in the skull of its sole remaining companion.

Uva shared with Adam and Shiv what she did. She took hold of the Dynamancer’s mind. Then, as his sole surviving comrade tried to burn a team of wounded Trapdoor Weaveresses, she had the Dynamancer drive the weapon into its comrade from behind.

And now, the sole surviving dragon was barely sane. The trauma from being made to murder his own companion rendered it broken and hollow. It couldn’t even look at Uva, wouldn’t meet her eyes as she stared down at him. 

Uva extended her Psychomancy threads out across the battlefield, coordinating with the surviving Shadow Cells, calling them in, and telling them to bring Valor with them.

Nearby, Shiv and Adam looked upon the Umbral with differing expressions. Shiv had a light look of euphoria on his face, and a feeling of desire spread through his body.

“That was felling awesome,” he breathed, looking between the mind-broken living dragon and the nearby dead one. “Godsdamned, Uva. I mean… Godsdamned.”

For most of his life, Shiv was ostracized and alienated. Relationships weren’t a possibility for him, and he never truly thought about his type. He was attracted to certain people, but that was about it. Right now, though, he discovered a very particular thing about his personality: He very much liked cold and terrifying women, and some part of him realized that was likely a result of spending so much time under Georges as well.

The kitchen really made me who I am, Shiv thought.

Comparatively, Adam’s eyes were wide, his pupils dilated in near terror. He kept looking at the dragon, looking at the Dynamancy, shaking and weeping. The Young Lord shuddered.

“Shiv, it is good that we have a reliable and potent ally in the form of Sister Uva, isn’t it?” Adam said. Shiv found himself vaguely aware of what the Young Lord was doing. The man was trying to reframe the situation in more palatable terms. What Adam was really terrified about, however, was how Uva could now easily rip into his mind as well and use him as a meat puppet. 

Adam really didn’t like the idea of being used as a meat puppet.

“Don’t worry, Adam,” Uva suddenly said. “I would never do that to you. Not without reason.” Uva meant that humorously, but still a burst of cold fear came from Adam as her humor broke. “Adam, I would never break your mind that way.”

“Without reason,” Adam replied, swallowing. “I think, I think that given the proper circumstances, and if I annoy you enough—-”

“If you annoy me enough, all the most I will do is maybe take away in your short-term memory. So you suddenly forget what you talk about and stop talking. Short of you becoming an enemy of the Composer and Weave, I will not harm or twist your mind.” Uva infused an injection of honesty into Adam. “Adam, hear my words. I will not hurt you this way. You are a noble friend and a reliable comrade. And Psychomancy is a heavy burden and a potent power to bear. I will not use it carelessly.”

Adam’s fear faded, and a slight affection replaced it. “Thank you, Uva. Why, if I was this terrified of Shiv, he would continuously tease me.”

Shiv eyed the Young Lord. “Don’t worry, Adam. I’m going to continuously tease you about being afraid of Uva.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Of course you will.”

The Young Lord sighed as he looked around. This stretch of the umbral wilderness was almost completely annihilated. His breath dragged as he pressed his lips together. “I didn’t appreciate how destructive fights between master tier opponents could get.”

“And there is no way this didn’t go unnoticed,” Uva said. “I can feel other minds approaching, many of them. Some of them are First Blood vampires. Dimensionals as well. They are avoiding the area, though. They are but patrols, and have no urge to die. I can feel the fear seeping from their minds.”

“How can you tell? Shiv asked.

Uva hummed. “The way they think, the things they speak about.”

“Just how far does your mana reach now?”Adam blinked. 

Uva regarded him for a moment and frowned in concentration. “Maybe a bit over twelve kilometers.”

“Twelve kilometers?” Adam blurted out. “Twelve kilometers? What are you…?”

Uva narrowed her eyes at him. “You can shoot much further than that with your Awareness and your…” She regarded his bow. “Your new arrow. What is that?”

“That’s a Veilpiercer arrow,” Adam said, coughing as he suddenly adjusted his posture. He held his head high and pulled his shoulders back, puffing out his chest without even realizing he was doing it. “It allows me to fire an arrow across dimensions. More than that, it lets me create a temporary dimension between me and my target. The arrow also gets faster the longer it travels. Tell her, Shiv.” 

Instead of telling her verbally, Shiv just sent her the memory—and especially of Adam saving him from the axe-bearer. Despite Shiv’s unrelenting urge to tease Adam, that memory of Adam extending a hand down to SHiv after distracting the axe-bearer meant a lot. Shiv paused. There was a heaviness inside of him. The Young Lord and he—they didn’t have the best history. But after all this, after Shiv saved Adam and Adam came back for him, whatever they were before, it wasn’t anymore.

“That is quite impressive, Adam,” Uva said. “And your arrows, they move faster the longer they travel?”

“Indeed,” Adam said. “I don’t even know the limits to that. And when it tears open a dimensional rift, the arrow doesn’t move in reality, right? It just accelerates even faster and travels on a shorter route. And we can travel through the dimensional tear. It’s not nearly as long as taking the direct route in the physical world. There are so many things I can do. There are so many experiments I can…” His words trailed as a flash of light washed over them.

All three of them turned and noticed three beams shooting high into the sky. The colors that composed the beams were dynamic, constantly shifting, and tendrils of mana zipped up from the land, splashing into the beams. More than that, the rising columns of magic called to each of them with a soft squeal. 

Just then, notifications flashed across all three of their eyes.

Master-Tier Equipment Reforged

Shiv grunted a laugh. “Right, we still got some hidden Master-Tier items to pick up. I got a feeling I know what I’m about to get. What about you two?”

Adam briefly narrowed his eyes, his irises flaring as he activated his Seer of Horizons. A few moments later, his expression changed into one of fascination.

“What?” Shiv replied. “What do you see?”

“I… we should and gather the items first. I’m pretty sure I know what the system prepared for you, Shiv, but me and Uva… might have some examining to do.”

“Sure,” Adam said. “Wait, let me make this quick.” The Young Lord promptly fired three arrows at once. Three different dimensional rifts then appeared before them, leading to three different glowing items. Uva and Shiv stared at Adam. He just grinned. “One at a time. Someone needs to watch the prisoner.”

***

Something about Tarlow’s kukri felt right in Shiv’s hand. The system applied its strange magics to reduce the great blade’s size and make it easier for him to wield, but there were some other minor changes as well. For one, the handle was now completely molded from bone adamantine and which let him hold manipulate it using his Biomancy.

Equipment Obtained: [Rememberer of Wounds]

Tier: Master

Condition: Perfect

Composition: Bone Adamantine; Stellarite

Enchantments > Speed-Amplification; Self-Mending; Conduit of Dawn; Chrono-Anchored Strike; Binding

 As Shiv held the blade, he examined its composition beyond the handle. The blade itself was Stellarite, much like the saber he got for Adam. Much like Harkness’s rapier as well. The blade thrummed with power, but it wasn’t just Shiv’s Deepest Edge. Instead, fractals of gold rippled out from its curved length as Shiv studied the blade. It also made his body feel lighter and faster. No wonder Tarlow felt so absurdly fast with the blade in her hand.

Shiv examined its enchantments and frowned. He knew what most of them meant. Conduit of Dawn was how she unleashed beams of intense heat from the blade, but Chrono-Anchored Strike was something unknown to him. To him, but not to Uva.

“A Chronomancy enchantment,” Uva blinked. “That is remarkable. For someone to invest such a skill into a blade… it’s unthinkable. The amount of people who develop Chronomancy—it’s rarer than even becoming a Psychomancer.”

Shiv spun the blade in his hand and tested it. He walked over to the dead dragon nearby and slashed at it. Deepest Edge carried the cut all the way through, and the unmoving corpse was hewed open as if someone had dropped a 100-meter-long guillotine upon its neck. Shiv took a few steps back and reached into the blade’s enchantment, focused on the deep power within, and just as he remembered performing the cut, he immediately jolted across existence—across time as he repeated the very same slash. Once more, his Deepest Edge and other skills triggered, and this time, the dragon was completely beheaded. Blood spewed across the ground, and Adam shuddered.

“Wow,” Shiv breathed. “That explains how she kept stabbing me in the back—how it felt like she just kept blinking into me. I guessed it might have been spatial magic, but Can Hu said it could be—” Shiv paused. “Shit. Can Hu.”

He was about to launch himself into the air to seek his downed automaton when Uva told him to remain calm as her mana strings twitched with new information.. “Trapdoor found him. He is well. They will transport him soon. He also wishes to convey a message:  He says that he is ashamed that he couldn’t help more.”

Shiv shook his head. “The only reason why I managed to block practically anything Tarlow did was because of Can Hu. When I lost it, she started smashing me around—even flung me into the axe-bearer, and he cracked me skull open.”

“Right, about that. Shiv, have I told you what a bloody cockroach are you?” Adam asked.

“Practically every day,” Shiv nodded indifferently. 

“But no, it’s a compliment this time. That thing was hitting you hard enough that the world was coming asunder. Small earthquakes were spreading through the place. Do you know that when it struck you with its axe, I passed out, too, from the shockwave?”

Shiv considered that, and he snorted. “Yeah, you do have kind of a glass jaw.”

Adam scoffed. “Or maybe I’m a normal person who doesn’t level and evolve like a monster.”

Shiv grunted. “Maybe. I don’t see a problem with being an obscene monster. Helps me survive.” He rubbed his face. There were a lot of pieces in him that were still broken. When his Biomancy recovered, he was going to store of his new wounds for examination. He almost managed to create a magically constructed injury against the Psychomancer, but he was still missing a lot of details. This would be good for practical study.

“Well, anyway, perhaps this might help me with my fragility,” Adam muttered. He plucked a vambrace off the ground, and Shiv stared at it. It looked like a cracked, broken, withered length of blackened leather, but it was still held together by something he couldn’t see. As Adam stretched his armored hand through the vambrace, a fissure splashed over his arm—a fissure of green and corrosive energy.

Shiv flung himself back. “Shit, Adam! Warn me when you put on something necromantic!”

But the Young Lord was no longer listening. Instead, he observed his new vambrace, he flexed his fingers and the corrosion danced between every digit. Slowly, a fissure opened atop his palm—a fissure that expanded and became a realm filled with lashing, corrosive power. It widened into a dense shape that pulled at the world, drawing in motes of withered blackness. Studying the item through Adam’s mind, Shiv saw its enchantments as well.

Equipment Obtained: [Vambrace of the Corroded Domain]

Tier: Master

Condition: Corroded

Composition: Withered Leather

Enchantments > Master Spatial Anchor; Master Dimensional Corrosion; Necromancy 50; Binding

Even though Shiv didn’t fully grasp all the details, he had a feeling that any Jump Mage that wanted to ambush Adam now was likely going to experience a very, very ugly demise.

“Let me see something,” Adam said. He pulled back his hand, but the corrosion remained in the air like a ball of festering rot. Adam formed a Veilpiercer and snake the tip into the corrosion. Suddenly the arrow ignited, turning a corroded green—and then Adam also applied a source of mana from the Spellstring. The lightning coursing around the Veilpiercer arrow was also infested with the Necromantic energy.

It was like the system gave Adam a weapon and a vambrace specifically designed to kill—Shiv paused at that thought. A lot of these weapons and skill upgrades they were getting were beyond just blind chance. It was like the system was shaping future conflicts to come. Was it trying to position Adam to be his slayer at some point, or potentially allow Adam to set Shiv off like a bomb?

As he considered that, Adam stared at Shiv, and he nodded. Their minds remained connected through Uva, and all three of them shared the same thought. “It would not surprise me.” 

Shiv paused and he grunted. “I’ll try not to give you a reason to shoot me.” 

Adam stared at him. “I think it will take quite a bit for me to shoot you now, Shiv.” And that made 

Shiv feel something altogether different. Adam looked away from him, seeming slightly embarrassed at his admission.

There was something unsaid. There was still a discomfort in the Young Lord about their history, but old wounds flared weakly beneath newly hardened bonds—they owed each other life, and recent life at that. Distant deaths were but shadows in the light.

Then Adam fired his arrow, and it streaked over the horizon. He aimed at a mountain, partially cracked but still mostly standing after the conflict between the Dragon Knights and Shiv’s group. The arrow impacted the mountain, and a corrosive thunderstorm detonated outward from the other end of the dimensional rift.

What’s more, however, was the unstable dimensional pathway Adam’s arrow created was also entirely corrosive within. Corrosive, and it exerted such a spatial pull on the world that Shiv had to root himself and Uva in place

“It’s a powerful spatial anchor as well,” Adam breathed. “I can feel it dragging and pulling at my Dimensionality. Between that and the corrosion… Any jump mage who tries to ambush me might find themselves in dire circumstances.” 

Shiv chuckled. “Seems the system wants to make you hard to reach.”

“Indeed,” Adam said, recalling how Tarlo beat him. “I suspect we’re going to be facing a great many Jump Mages soon as well.”

“Well. We will be raiding a gate soon.” Uva frowned.

Finally, the Umbral Psychomancer gazed upon her Master-Tier item, but confusion spread across her face. The same confusion spread across Shiv and Adam’s features as well.

“I’m not sure what this is,” Shiv muttered.

“Me neither,” Adam said, narrowing his eyes.

He observed it using his Seer of Horizons, but ended up letting out a sigh. “Well, pick it up, Uva.”

“How?” she replied. She gestured at the construct, and she had a point. It resembled a small cloud of fast-moving metal shards that danced around a mana core shaped from gravity—a Dynamancy core.

Shiv reflexes were fast enough for him to study the shards in vivid detail, and he noticed something. “Those—those are from the Biomancer shield,” 

Adam blinked, and he immediately cast his senses kilometers away to where they left the Biomancer headless in a pool of its own blood. “Indeed… A section of its shield had been broken away.”

“Wait, I think I hear something,” Uva said, and then one of her psionic tendrils slipped into the mana core of her new item. Suddenly a notification appeared in their eyes, and with a single thought the metal shards stopped dancing and recomposed themselves, fusing together to become a hovering tower shield. It was still cracked, lined and veined with damage, but it seemed to be better that way. It obeyed every single one of Uva’s commands and it also—

“Hello,” the shield said. All three of them blinked.

“Who said that?” Adam said.

“The shield,” Uva breathed.

“There’s… somewhere there. I’m… I’m lost… I’m scared. Why do I feel so scared? What does it feel like, or does it feel like my mind has been ripped in so many pieces? What do I feel like? I’m bits and pieces of a strand pulled apart? Oh God, I don’t know—the blood, the blood… my thumbs and someone dies, the blood…”

Uva’s eyes widened. Memories came from her unbidden: Memories of her using the wind dragon to shove its thumb through the eyes of one of its comrade. 

Adam gagged in horror and disgust. “How did you… you just… you just did that? How?”

“As an act of surprise,” Uva answered matter-of-factly, more focused on her new item than Adam’s visceral terror.

“It seems,” she said, “that the shield has an imprint of one of my former—” She paused. “Hostages.”

“Hostages. That’s what you’re going to call them?” Adam said, a quiver to his voice.

Uva seemed to think it fit. “It seems like the most apt word: that—or sleeve or glove or something… something that I can wear.”

“You’re wearing people…” Adam breathed.

“She’s wearing enemies,” Shiv shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems pretty cool to me. Kind of hot, too. Just all the power, them not being able to do anything about it.” He let out an almost shuddering breath.

Adam stared at shiv. “You… you have problems, Shiv. You have deep, deep problems.”

“Maybe I just appreciate a girl who can rip a dragon-knight's mind in half.” Shiv grinned at Uva, and she replied with a very appreciate flutter of her eyes. 

Between them, Adam began to sputter. “Stop… disconnect me if you’re going to do this. Stop!” 

Uva laughed, and they stopped before things got too awkward for poor Adam.

“What else do you remember?” Uva asked the shield.

“I don’t… oh god, I remember. I remember that I’m afraid of you. Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you ask. You don’t need to force me to do anything. I’ll just work with you. I’m very… my personality… I’m… I’m a very affable person. Yes, I like—I like to do things other people tell me to do. I’ll become anything you want.”

The shield began to break apart, and it changed into several shapes. Should have noticed, however, that the shards could only move within a five-meter radius, but the Dynamancy mana core could move itself as well.

Shiv’s Gravitic Wrestler felt the pull of the shield, and it had a force inside it that was just slightly wearer than what he could unleash.

Uva bade the shield to approach her. It hovered behind her, did so, and then she climbed aboard it and stood atop the shield as if it was a flying board.

“Well,” Uwe said, “this should be interesting,” and finally she dismantled every piece of metal and collapsed it around herself. Behind her, the Dynamancy core hovered just over her head, but it seemed vulnerable and exposed.

Shiv remembered facing the dimensional golem—how he killed it by ripping into its core. He supposed that probably was a similar weakness with the shield, or at least a vulnerability. 

Uva immediately reformed the shield and launched it. It speared through the ground, casting dirt everywhere. She kept going as it blasted deeper and deeper into the ground. She smirked as her tendril kept her connected to the shield, and she casually recalled it a second later. It shot back to her, drifted around, and planted itself in the earth just behind her. The shards began to drift around her like constellations.

Equipment Obtained: [The Mind-Shattered Sentinel]

Special: Awakened Item

Tier: Master

Condition: Shattered (Perfect)

Composition: Adamantine

Enchantments > Master Gravity Field; Dynamancy 80; Bulwark of Force; Self-Mending; Binding

“Well, it seems that I might have a physical solution to some problems as well now.” Uva smiled. 

“The system’s real thoughtful,” Shiv commented. “Everything we got was to cover up a shortcoming or enhance our effectiveness somehow.”

“And that is what it means to be favored.” Valor’s voice sounded from behind them as several Weaveresses threw back their coats and walked into the light. Valor was resting in the hands of Still Water. She looked a bit battered, but otherwise in good shape. Behind her, Liquid Serpent was hopping on one limb—all hers others were gone, mostly stumps, but she still seemed to be in high spirits.

“I think I killed another one.”

“You didn’t,” Spark Ripper commented behind her. 

“I think I wounded another one severely.”

“I had to slash its eyes before it ripped you in half.”

“I would have bested the dragon somehow,” Liquid Serpent said, sounding more delusional with every exchange.

The fire within Valor’s sockets burned dim, and Shiv winced as he regarded the skull. Somehow the Legendary Pathbearer looked weak, spent.

“Valor had to do a bit of necromancy to get me and Uva out of an ugly situation,” Adam said.

“That was nothing,” Valor said, slurring his words. “But my hands—do you perchance have my arm? It would please me greatly if you did.”

“Oh yes, Shiv.”

Shiv reached into his cloak and pulled out Valor Thann’s right arm. It was a crystalline limb, edged with strange energy, and ritualistically etched with strange patterns. He didn’t much want to hold onto the arm for long. Something about him told him that it was going to be rather volatile when triggered.

“Good, bring it closer,” he said. “I wish to, I wish to…”

And then the arm left Shiv, guided by an unseen force. It streaked through the air and attached itself to the skull. The hand clamped around Valor’s featureless face for a moment. Then a flash followed.

“Release me,” Valor commanded, strength suddenly flooding into his voice.

The weaveress chucked him into the air, expecting him to crash down. But then a pulse of crackling, corrosive energy spread out and created an outline. 

For a moment Shiv saw in that festering mess—staggered back from the Necromancy. But still he saw: he saw a tall, thin man with midnight black hair, with piercing blue eyes, with a thin, well-manicured beard, wearing a set of skeletal armor more ornately decorated than what Shiv had. But he was also outlined—outlined by the power of Necromancy flowing through his armor, flashing behind his eyes. And then the Necromancy veiled him, shrouded him from an even higher power: the power of absolute radiance, brighter than even whiteness itself, the power of Animancy. 

For a moment Shiv glimpsed who Valor was, at the height of his capabilities, and he felt like he was gazing upon a giant beyond giants.

Becoming a Hero or even a Master was substantial for most Pathbearers, but Shiv remembered the gulf between Adept and Master. He felt the power of a hero as he fought Confriga, as he faced the Jealousy. How powerful, then, could a Legend be? Marikos’s flame seared him, dissolved him and vaporized an entire mountain. Vicar Sullain stopped time itself and turned fire into life. But what was Valor capable that made him feel so much more potent than even they?

Then the moment faded, but Valor didn’t, and no longer was he a loose collection of limbs and skeletal appendages. Two arms hovered across from each other, their positions outlined by a crackling shroud of necromancy. A silhouette formed for Valor, showing the general imprint of a man, his skull hovered in the right place, but at his heart—or the place where his heart should have been—the dagger burned, and no longer was it stone. Instead, it cracked away, revealing a glint of mithril and something more.

“Ah,” Valor let out a breath. “I am… more myself again.”

He closed his right hand and flexed his digits. The Hecromancy danced and surged through his right limb, and a slight whirl of power flicked through the earth and outright left it withered, dissolved, cutting deep without meeting any resistance. 

Shiv was backing away even more now. He didn’t want to be anywhere in Valor while the Necromancy was—

“Shiv!” A voice came from behind him, and to his surprise, he saw Can Hu approaching. Not carried by any Weaveresses, however; instead, a platform of earth carried the badly damaged armor across the air. Shiv blinked as Cang Hu opened himself up, revealing his half-skull to Shiv. There, Shiv saw that Can Hu’s insides were layered by new strips of strange alloys, and that his fractured frame seemed to be spraying out pieces of drifting stone. More than that, its eyes were also sparking with reaching bolts of electricity. Yet, at a closer glance, Shiv could see the bolts weren’t actually bolts, but fading streams of zeros and ones.

“Can Hu, what happened to you?”

“Skill Evolutions,” Can Hu said. “I am now an Adept in Geomancy—a Molder of Metal and Stone,” Canghu said, sounding surprised. “I also evolved my Machine Mastermind Skill into something more. I am a Binaric Sovereign now. Whatever that entails…”

Shiv grinned. “Great. Good for you. You look… well you sound better, actually?”

“That is not all,” Can Hu said. From under his skull drifted a small shape, a metal seed. “I was given something else. Something you should see.” Can Hu cast the seed into the Earth and Shiv blinked as, for a moment, nothing happened. The others stared as well. Then suddenly, from the earth expanded a frame of metallic vines that became something of a gateway. Suddenly, a dimensional pulsed into shape beyond the gate.

Adam gasped. “That’s—I can feel that. That’s a minor dimension!”

Equipment Obtained: [Garden of Bountiful Alloy]

Tier: Master

Condition: Perfect

Composition: Para-Alloy

Enchantments > Category One Dimension Core; Garden of Alloy; Adaptive Environment

Can Hu chirped in acknowledgement. “It seems to be the case.”

The party ventured inside for a moment, but Adam eyed his vambrace. “I best, I think I best keep a close watch on this in case I affect some other dimensional spaces. I think I can control it, but… best not to risk anything until I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” Shiv said. “I don’t want to go off like a bomb because you spread your corrosion into Can Hu personal dimension.”

Adam paused and then he took another step back.

“Wise,” Valor said. He eyed Adam’s vambrace. That is an interesting gift the system has bestowed upon you. It’s Necromancy.”

“Yes,” Adam replied. “I think… I think the system forged it deliberately. Bound the Necromancy you used to something found on one of the dragons. In fact, everything here was forged with from the remains and equipment of the dragon and how they died, then reshaped to our needs in the aftermath.”

As Valor spoke to Adam, Uva and Shiv ventured into Can Hu’s personal dimension. Inside, they saw vines spreading everywhere—vines that connected colossal trees veined with ore and all kinds of gleaming materials. Practically everything around them was something that could be mined or used to create new materials.

“It is not a very wide space, perhaps only 50 meters,” Can Hu said from the outside. “But the garden… the metals and minerals regrow. There are, there are veins of all varieties, ore veins and even silicon.”

Shiv blinked. He didn’t fully understand the implications of this, but Uva did.

“You have, you have a direct source of raw, renewable materials,” Uva realized. “You can build as you go now. Without worrying much for materials.”

“Yes,” Can Hu replied. “Perhaps I can. The system makes its intent known..”

“So we might have a drone army?” Shiv asked.

“We might have more than that,” Can Hu replied with a hint of mechanical excitement. “But only time will truly tell. Pathbearer,” a note of heavy gravitude entered the automaton’s voice. “I… I must thank you for taking me on this journey. I must thank you. I have sustained slight damage, but, but I am more myself than ever before again. I am more in some ways.”

“I feel like the actual winner here,” Shiv said. He looked around the garden and nodded. “Congratulations, Can Hu. I, maybe you can build me another mobile kitchen if you feel that grateful.”

Can Hu laughed. “I will build you an entire restaurant that can fly if you give me enough time.”

And just then Shiv realized he was borderline sexually attracted to another type of person, a type of person who would offer him an entire restaurant.

“Sorry, Uva, but I think he just used his Silver Tongue on me. I might be seduced.”

Uva laughed. “I think it hit me a little bit, too.”

Can Hu chimed. “I do not have the parts to consummate an intimate relationship, but I have no trouble with watching.”

Both of them paused and gawked at Can Hu.

“That was a joke.”

“I…” Shiv grunted and didn’t know what to say.

Uva covered her mouth and barely suppressed a giggle.

“Shiv.”

Just then, Adam’s voice called from the outside. He sounded urgent and worried. “Shiv, come out. We, uh, we might have some more problems. I just caught sight of a hundred more dragon-knights coming directly at us.”