dirk_grey

Blacksmith vs. the System 112

After another half a day filled with the most exciting of all sacred and forbidden arts — statistics — Maria let out a sudden, frustrated growl. “Alright, I surrender. Your theory about courage makes perfect sense,” she declared.

I had to admit, I was impressed by her development. She was getting impressively capable when it came to using various mathematical models, far better than any undergraduate student I had the pleasure of teaching. As for doctorate students, it was not ...

Blacksmith vs. the System 111

The temptation to start playing with my skills to see the impact of the most recent discovery was difficult to resist but I managed to hold on and focused on the problem that was most urgent, with the data available to me.

What determined whether people could advance their skills naturally or not?

The data I had managed to collect, along with the other observations, suggested that it was not an accident. It seemed like there were some seriously strong correlations in terms of ce...

Blacksmith vs. the System 110

“… And, that’s the last thing you need to pay attention to while helping members of your group develop their skills,” I continued explaining. “It’s easy to push yourself too much and expand all your Health to improve your skill, but don’t forget that, we’re still in the dungeon, and we have enemies. Safety first,” I added, which finished the long list of guidelines I wanted them to follow.

“Yes, sir,” they responded in concert, and for a moment, I felt like I was b...

Blacksmith vs. the System 109

I wanted to talk with Terry, but I didn’t approach him for two reasons. First, singling out someone like that in a complicated situation was a bad idea. It already caused problems in my undergrad classes when I was a professor, and the current situation was far more complicated than a classroom.

Also, I wasn’t entirely sure that he would be a good candidate for the task I had in mind yet. I thought he was, but I had the luxury of time, at least until I could reach the next stage, a...

Immortal Freeloader 165

It was merely seconds later three presence rushed to the opening, ready to intervene. The three Golden Core cultivators had been disguised with black cloaks, the blocking effect good enough that it would have confused me if it wasn’t for my recent upgrades in artifact forging.

With that, I was able to see their identity. Two Golden Core Elders from Kartpa Valley, and one from Dragon Peak. “Explain,” the latter one said as he floated toward the center while the other two clearly t...

Immortal Freeloader 164

The moon hung low in the sky, casting a pale glow over the dark forest that my team of Blood Essence martial artists rushed through, their footsteps soundless, their breaths controlled.

I couldn’t help but feel impressed by the speed and elegance they moved. A part of it was their experience, as the demonic cultivator base wasn’t the first one they had been attacking. That wasn’t even the first one of the night.

While I had slipped the information about demonic cultivator ...

Blacksmith vs. the System 108

As I arrived at the third-floor outpost, I once again planned to stay outside, ready to observe the general mood. Admittedly, with the trees planted all around the base, they no longer had to deal with the dungeon mist blocking their view, so their behavior wasn’t as unfiltered.

There still was a difference between that, and how they would act with their ‘boss’ walking among them.

However, the moment I approached the outpost enough to catch the details, that plan had chang...

Blacksmith vs. the System 107

“I think I’m going to take a break,” Maria said, looking exhausted after hours of forging.

“It’s a very well-deserved rest, you were amazing,” I said. Considering she was still my boss — nominally — and someone who could evaporate me with a wave of her hand, any observer would have believed that I was doing it to get in her good graces.

It couldn’t be further from the truth. Calling the day productive would have been an understatement. With Maria helping me con...

Blacksmith vs. the System 106

“So, how much of the instructions you gave to Eleanor were actually necessary?” Maria asked once Eleanor left.

“Oh, all of it,” I said.

“Really? All twenty pages of it? And, your handwriting is so tiny…”

I shrugged. “As I was explaining before Eleanor’s success interrupted us, it’s too easy to introduce bias to experiments. If I wasn’t going to run that experiment again later, I wouldn’t have let her run it. Her attitude alone might ruin the experi...

Blacksmith vs. the System 105

“You were gone for a long time,” Maria said once I climbed up the hill with a few jumps. Eleanor was there as well, but she didn’t interrupt her task, her blade dancing between different forms, deaf to the world. “And, what’s in that huge bag?”

“There was a small development. Not all Farmers were able to upgrade their skills naturally,” I explained even as I put the bag down.

“How many of them?” she asked.

“About ten percent,” I said.

“Good...

Blacksmith vs. the System 104

Fifteen minutes later, the whole vibe had changed by the courtesy of two layers of trees I had grown, finally allowing the gathered two thousand people to see each other.

“You all gathered to address the call for a mission, one to keep our world a safer place, so that one day, our children don’t have to live in fear of monsters. I applaud your bravery!” I declared loudly, enough for the crowd to hear it.

The crowd shuffled, surprised by my declaration. “I have fought aga...

Blacksmith vs. the System 103

“Let’s call it a day,” I said as I finished forging another piece, this time a large cuirass to complete the armor I had prepared for Eleanor, completing the set. Maria was wearing one of her own under her robe, a thin chainmail that could resist not only physical, but also magical attacks — as tested by Maria herself.

[Mana Forge (Epic) 128 -> 130]

“Really, that early,” Maria said, looking disappointed. “We were just getting a hang of it.”

“Believe me, ...

Blacksmith vs. the System 102

“I think we hit the limit,” Maria said once we spent fifteen minutes uninterrupted by any boss monster despite the size of the forest.

“Looks like it,” I responded. “Still, we must have killed almost fifty of them. Is that normal?”

“For a dungeon that has been left unattended as much as this one, certainly,” she said. “Every dungeon has its own limitations, but most spawn a new boss monster between a day and a week. To my knowledge, exceptions are rare, to both e...

Immortal Freeloader 163

Once I had established a proper spiritual pillar for the Forest Dance, it didn’t mean my work was over. On the contrary, I needed to intensify my task of expanding the enclaves. While I wanted to still keep them hidden, secrecy wasn’t as paramount once I saw that the cultivators chose to retreat against a potential threat relating to ancient martial arts rather than sending their Nascent Soul cultivators.

And, the fact that the only Nascent Soul cultivator I had encountered hid his...

Immortal Freeloader 162

I had many plans to be launched once I returned to mortal domains … only to hit an immediate problem.

Janassa was gone.

Not only she was gone, but also there was no disturbance to my formations. No external attack, no internal fiddling. “I just need to decide whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” I muttered even as I examined the fake mystic land, taking note of many small signs, including a toppled tea cup and a half-empty teapot.

The evidence implied that s...

Immortal Freeloader 161

“Well, that was a better show than I had been expecting,” I said even as the mountain calmed down. The raging blizzard had calmed into gentle snow, the kind that a movie about Christmas would have at the end of the movie. Even the magma of the open volcano stopped bubbling furiously, the surface calming down.

Well, as calm as it could be for an active volcano.

Elsana was the first one to speak. “Well, that was an … experience. For a moment, I was sure that the breakthrou...

Blacksmith vs. the System 101

The other side of the gate was as I had expected, filled with an army of insects that rushed forward, threatening to drown me, which I cut down rapidly with ease to create some space.

“Disgusting,” Maria said the moment she arrived, a red shield of mana hanging around her like a bubble, then she waved her hand, and a ring of fire exploded outward, killing hundreds of insects at once, burning them to ashes.

Which, incidentally, destroyed their shells as well. Their mana puffe...

Blacksmith vs. the System 100

“That’s enough. We’ll walk the rest of the way. We’re not riding a car before you figure out how to make springs,” Maria said the moment we arrived at the third floor. I didn’t blame her. While creating a car with her help to deal with the technical challenges had been a fun exercise, the same wasn’t true for the ride itself.

Calling it uncomfortable was like claiming the dungeon boss of the dungeon was a bit bigger than ordinary insects. The brief stop we had at the outp...

Blacksmith vs. the System 99

“That’s enough,” Maria finally called. “My head is actually aching.”

“Alright, but you have made excellent progress,” I said. It was not an exaggeration. We were on it for almost four hours, and in that short amount of time, she had made enough progress to make even the most overachieving student proud as long as they had managed to replicate it in a week.

A part of it was about the Intelligence helping her, but not all of it. Her effort and general understanding a...

Blacksmith vs. the System 98

“So, what do we do?” Maria asked a while later, playing with my backup sword, examining the sword I created based on the epic skill. Once we calmed down, Eleanor started meditating once more, while I helped Maria to catch up with the secrets I had been hiding.

“I still want to keep my abilities a secret as much as possible,” I said. “We don’t know how the world will react, and I don’t want to test it before gaining enough power. I don’t want to get experimented on or ca...

Blacksmith vs. the System 97

I waited for Maria at the peak of the hill, ready to work on the next set of swords I would give Eleanor, just another little thing to keep her mood up. Eleanor could see me thanks to the bosses we had hunted, but Maria could not.

A little perfunctory, maybe, but doing my best was a good idea when facing a mercurial woman who could literally kill me with her gaze.

When they arrived at the bottom of the hill, Eleanor presented her arm. Maria grabbed, and then with a jump, Eleanor...

Blacksmith vs. the System 96

We spent the next three hours working on the same issue. I forged a set of swords, she practiced with them, and while I worked on the data, she meditated. Unfortunately, for every five minutes of practice, I was spending an hour doing calculations.

I never wanted a computer more. Doing the calculations by hand was truly torture. Even the most basic calculations to lay down the basic statistical data like standard deviation and correlation took a considerable amount of time, especially ...

Blacksmith vs. the System 95

“How do we start,” she asked as she drew her sword, her smile bright.

“By sheathing that back,” I responded.

“What, why?” she said. “You promised that we are going to focus on this above anything else except an actual emergency. There’s none.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle even as I watched her attitude. “We are, but there are two things to take note of. First, we’re going to start with a lesson on how I achieved what I did, so that you have a genera...

Blacksmith vs. the System 86-90

— Chapter 86

“What do you see?” Eleanor whispered two minutes later, as we stood a distance away from them. Finding them hadn’t been too difficult, as they retreated back to the canyon they previously wanted to use as an ambush spot.

“As far as I can tell, all of them are here, and they look tense,” I said. “My best guess is, they are afraid of another attack.”

“Good. They should be,” she added even as her sword — well, technically my sword, but the m...

Blacksmith vs. the System 81-85

— Chapter 81

Even as I watched the two spies disappear into the mist, I didn’t interrupt our sparring immediately. I didn’t know the reason why they were here, and even though their presence was suspicious, I couldn’t simply attack them. And, not just due to ethical reasons.

Information asymmetry was valuable in any circumstance, and had I attacked them, they would have realized that I possessed a way to see through the mist. Every other method I managed to learn about wo...

Immortal Freeloader 160

After a productive day of research, we managed to discover a relatively reliable method of breakthrough, which was mostly about my ability to directly manipulate Qi, something pure martial artists, both ancient and modern, lacked.

Unfortunately, it came with its own problems.

I ended up face to face with Lannayin and Elsana, with both of them looking at me, determined, making me wish that we weren’t as successful. “Are you sure you want to try?” I asked. “We can just lea...

Immortal Freeloader 159

I didn’t move too far away from the medical wing, just moved closer to the bubbling magma, the red light giving me enough read the metal plates. It was not the greatest source of illumination, but considering the text was about how to progress in martial arts that had been developed based on the volcano, it felt poetically appropriate.

 I sat cross-legged on the warm floor, glad that metal plates were far less susceptible to being blown away by the merciless winds of blizzard. <...

Immortal Freeloader 158

I rushed to their side, not wanting them to wake up alone. Waking up meant that their situation wasn’t critical anymore, but their cultivation was still filled with problems. The last thing I wanted was for them to panic and try to use their power, putting themselves back in a critical condition.

As for disguise, I didn’t wear any. For them, I was Arthanum, giving them a familiar face was much better than trying to juggle yet another fake identity. Luckily, the existence of the fak...

Blacksmith vs. the System 94

Unfortunately, working on switching skills wasn't going as smoothly as I expected. “Umm, do it faster?” I suggested.

“Really, do it faster?” Eleanor grumbled even as she repeated the attempt, which was not any faster than her previous hundred attempts. The only thing that changed was her condition. She looked exhausted, unnaturally so. It reminded me of the time I pushed myself trying to modify my Meditation skills.

It was a good idea to stop it. I just needed to find a ...

Blacksmith vs. the System 93

“And, that makes it ten,” Eleanor said even as she absorbed another crystal, her smile widening. She was referring to the number of crystals she had absorbed, and I had absorbed an equal amount, each consumption increasing our vision even more.

With her tactic of cutting the limbs of the gargantuan beast — something she could achieve without any risk thanks to her absurd Dexterity — keeping my hydroponic garden mostly intact, I was able to expand it more, which drew more gargan...