akasoindustries

216 - Re: Sturmblitz Kunst

A/N: No chapters on 24th, 25th, and 26th Dec, for Christmas reasons.

“Dunno. He’s been spending a third of his time running errands, a third trying to make that Iron Rider belt function, and a third obsessively training one slash,” Zel shrugged, answering plainly and without smugness for once.

“What did I tell him about stress management…” sighed Ezaryl in response, quickly catching herself by transitioning to her next question. “Ah, the main reason why I came here, ...

215 - Penultimate Day

The altar turned out to be quite a bit larger than it had seemed, the grass having concealed its sizable base alongside an array of nine shorter pedestals around it. Walking right past, Ozmir led them to another door, beyond it a similar chamber to the one they’d entered through, merely possessing a silver gate frame instead of an elevator.

Uttering thanks for the guidance, Jorfr returned to the altar, setting down his pack. While Zel followed along and observed up close, Ozmir hung b...

214 - The Leyline Well

A/N: Probably no chapter tomorrow. Mainly doing editing today.

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“That’d be ‘cause I used a scroll written by some nameless desert swordsman that I got out of the sect’s vault,” smugged the self-satisfied beast-slayer. “They could be two different things, but something in my gut tells me the Primordial Self mentioned in that scroll and the Spirit Animal you speak of are one and the same, o...

213 - Beneath the Sect

And indeed, upon her approach bearing that intention in mind, Zel found a door-shaped section of the wall flickering and growing increasingly uncertain, until its fake matter dissolved into Fog and faded away. On the other side was a short, narrow hallway, leading to a… Tiny, circular room? No, not quite.

As Ozmir led them to stand within the circular space, Zel noticed the distinct gap between where the hallway’s floor ended and the room’s space began, alongside a small, subtle c...

212 - Draw Upon the Land

“The arts of my people are rooted in connection to the land and its spirits,” Jorfr answered. “Since our bout, I have traveled to places where nature still rules in this land. I communed with the spirits of this land, gathered herbs, and sought out the hide of a great predator that I might impart unto you my people’s arts as I had promised. Within the bag are these material components, within my mind the rest.”

“It sounds like- No, you look like you did all ...

211 - Newman Alchemicals and Jorfr's Return

And so, she had gotten her sparring partners, and in so doing also promising candidates for induction into the sect proper… Or rather, accelerated induction. She didn’t plan on arbitrarily rejecting people based on lack of pre-existing ability, but whilst some would be only given basic guidance to start with and aided in laying foundations of their own, Zelsys knew it would be pointless and even dangerous for her to train such novices personally or expect them to keep up with her in any w...

210 - High-intensity Training

One moment Makhus saw her standing there, and the next she had already stepped forward, her cleaver embedded in the dummy, and a forceful gust of wind blew back his hair. There was not a thunderclap, but the forceful reverberation of cold iron, the growl of a beast as it bit into its target.

Indeed, no thunderclap… But Makhus was certain there was a delay between when he saw the impact and when he heard it.

Zel let go of her cleaver, allowing the dummy to tumble to the ground as...

209 - Iron Philosophy

Makhus scarcely knew what he himself had just done until he witnessed its aftermath.

The bright-red veins bulging all over the swordsman-alchemist’s body faded as he stood stunned at the sight of a halved log dummy, into each half embedded one half of a bullet.

Self-satisfied grin spreading over his face and pride drowning out the pain in his arm, Makhus uttered the name of this strike which he had so thoroughly premeditated:

“Iron Philosophy: Opus One.”

A moment...

208 - Of Arms Encased in Steel

Zelsys stood there in stunned silence, having expected a shotgun blast of miniature lightning-beads.

“You uh, do anything with the striker?” she asked with a nervous laugh.

“Whuh?” Sarz blinked a few times, dumbfounded.

Taking a deep breath, Zel began burning off one-third increments of her lung capacity and firing off one miniature lightning bolt after another into the rock, explaining, “See this? This used to be a lightning shotgun. I would just dump a bunch of F...

207 - The Impelling Arm

While Gen shrunk where he stood at the admonishment of his senior, Sarz nodded towards Zelsys.

“Go ahead, try it on. I’d like to see it worn as intended at least once,” he nodded towards the arm-harness. “Just don’t be surprised at the initial sting, y’know how these things are.”

A curious trepidation churned in Zel’s stomach for the split-second of consideration that she took before deciding to do as the smith asked, having no reason not to.

The sleeve was e...

206 - Specifications

A/N: As I already noted on an earlier chapter, I'm taking a week off to play Endwalker starting tomorrow.

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Going by the new and much flashier sale sign, he was marketing them as civilian goods made to military standards, whilst selling them for an even lower price.

Zel felt a strange sense of pride over owning an early, unmodified version of the Sturmgandr.

Entering the smithy, nothing re...

205 - Hammerforged

...And with that final blow, the Forgemother’s manifestation lost cohesion, dissolving into wisps of blue fire that blew away into the night sky upon the winds, whilst her true essence returned to little more than an everburning blue coal within the forge reactor.

Many of those still out and about witnessed this feat of divine smithing being performed, but only few understood its magnitude, thinking it to be an arcane fireworks display. It wasn’t the first of such displays from the ...

204 - Believe in the Forgemother

The Smithy stood far in the fields, far from prying eyes or would-be interference, the G-Kaisers having had it walk itself down the side road they had initially parked it by. In addition to this, they’d asked several Iron Brotherhood tankmen to barricade the road, the mercenaries fully aware of what this meant and more than happy to do a favor for the originators for so much of the equipment they relied upon.

Sarz’s white-haired, resolutely silent countenance presided over the ritua...

203 - Fresh Fit/Reactor Concerns

The right boot’s frontal plates also bore an etched lightning pattern akin to that upon her cleaver’s flat, belying the difference in internal construction between it and its twin. Zel didn’t have the eye to distinguish what exactly the differences were or what they meant, only that there was noticeably *more* inside the right boot than the left. She wagered it to be arcane circuitry of some sort.

Her feet slipped into these massive armored jackboots just as easily as her legs had...

202 - Change of Clothes

“Just on time,” he smiled, nodding towards the two boxes. “I got done putting the finishing touches on them just this morning. I trust that you will be satisfied.”

“I trust I will,” Zel grinned, pulling out her promissory ticket alongside a small bag of money she’d prepared ahead of time, containing the second half of her payment. She put it down on the counter and reached for one of the boxes, adding, “Let’s take a look, then.”

The craftsman then whipped at he...

201 - Sturmblitz Kunst

A/N: Starting with next Friday (3rd December), I'm taking a week off to play Endwalker.

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On one hand, she couldn’t just name things what they were. It would put people off using her new method, it would make her invention of a comprehensive close-combat system seem mundane by comparison to its predecessors and the existing martial arts it would inevitably draw upon.

On the other hand, she cou...

Zelsys Training Arc Design Update Complete

200 - Bayonets and Heraldry

Watching that woman was as mesmerizing as it was unnerving, doubly so to anyone with actual martial arts experience.

One could discern the seeds of a unique fighting style quickening within hours and days whence it should reasonably take weeks and months at the very least, even with near-constant daily training.

Those who had seen her training in days prior also noticed a change, an unnerving spontaneity to her motions.

Everything she did looked like she’d done it a thousa...

199 - Thundercharger

The idea of a means to more directly manage pain also struck her, though she left it for whenever she would next commune with the Primordial Self, therefore Zelsys decided it would be best to dedicate her time to polishing what she already had and trying to create a real version of Thunderclap Sting.

Perhaps if she extrapolated the twisting motion even further, if she involved her entire body somehow…

With each attempt, she grew to more and more understand the s...

198 - Evolution

It didn’t even have a proper title, and only held cryptic poems. The text had grown famous for allegedly being stolen from the Sanger Family’s elder prior to its proliferation, being known as the Sword-Soul Manuscript.

It was also utterly useless, as far as Zefaris was concerned.

For entertainment, however, it was quite useful, insofar as reading it out loud in a mocking tone of voice and laughing at the pretentiousness of it.

Zel ended up both reading aloud from all fou...

197 - Spiritual Cleansing

In preparation for Zef’s decision to go through with taking the pill, they once more drew upon Makhus’s know-how. Despite his still far-from-ideal state, he gladly drew up two full sheets of the same talismans he had used to seal what Zel had regurgitated when she drank the Necrobeast Elixir into a solid, sealed ball.

He agreed with the caveat that it would take him around two hours to get done, and upon their return from an appropriate-length hike to pick the seals up, Makhus comme...

196 - Stonecrackers

A/N: Some RL bullshit going on today, probably won't get much done so probably no chapter tomorrow.

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The chef, upon seeing them, beamed with a welcoming aura that reminded them of Quincy, sparking the thought that he was probably glad to have peers to cook for again… Though it wasn’t just that. There was a curiosity to his countenance, directed overtly at Zelsys with a quizzical look as he handed...

195 - Subtle Metamorphosis

The Mind was willing, but the Body wasn’t there to do the deed…

...Until it was.

Indeed, just as the Composite Titan recovered from the loss of a right arm, the Primordial Self had finished carving out the back of the Emperor-effigy’s neck and severing the spinal cord, causing it to limply tip forward. This feat complete and its thoughtform body barely even coherent at this point the Primordial Self leapt from the Titan’s left shoulder, somehow manifesting within its hands...

Zelsys Training Arc Design Update First Render Pass

194 - Empire of Mind

Zelsys backed off and summoned up a storm of fireflies, spreading out her arms and with a stomp bringing uncountable sand-grains into the air. Each and every one she transformed into ball lightning, conjuring forth ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand fireflies.

Unleashing them upon the titan carved a hole into the Queen head, blasting a channel through her skull, and even as she fired off a barrage of fireflies, Zelsys conjured yet more to continue her onslaught, but she was cut sh...

193 - A Common Foe

When the Thundersaw Beast turned into a distorted cleaver, and then returned with metal screeching to a vague approximation of its true form, the Primordial Self was left there, laying in a crater of glass, half-enveloped in a brittle cocoon, bleeding and struggling for breath, its left arm severed at the shoulder.

Then it got up, a tendril of blood whipping from the stump and yanking the arm back on before, with a scream, it lunged at her again.

Zelsys cut it down, already swingi...

Zelsys Training Arc Design Update Previz Sketch

I'm making sure the small details that are off get corrected (like the wall going to the top and the cleaver handle looking more like it's melted on), but yea. Also it's color flats so it obviously looks flat, I'm pretty sure the muscle will come out in rendering (but i'm still reminding the artist that she has to be shredded to be sure).

192 - Power Struggle

She had already arrived at the conclusion that she would need to exploit every advantage afforded by her sapience, for she had felt the dream-realm’s bizarrity already. Where she would’ve expected her instincts was now a foggy approximation, the feelings of drive, of fight or flight, everything animalistic; it was numbed. Not absent, but… Compartmentalized. Distinctly separate, still perceptible, but unable to affect her directly.

They were also not quite right, invasive feelings ...

191 - Rule Thyself, Despot of Self

Some argued to give him a proper burial, to spite him by being better than him, whilst others wished to butcher him and display his head atop the lighthouse. Many, however, wished to burn him - to turn his own pleasure-ship into a floating funeral pyre, believing that this manner of destroying the body would placate the spirit and avert a curse.

Such a conclusion would, however, never come. While some of Rigport’s people celebrated and others raged against those few Pateirians who def...

190 - KGF/Dealmaker

When Zel finally asked if she, too, intended to build and teach her own martial art, the blonde answered that she hadn’t planned on teaching it, but now that she thought about it, revolvers and similar repeating guns becoming popular was an inevitability.

Zel posed a second question, one that got Zef to actually think about the answer for a moment - the name of this would-be close-quarters combat doctrine.

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