Adrenaline Junkie [Book 2 Complete]

The sizzle of cooling metal hissed through the still air of the Basic Workshop – Blacksmith as Archie, using a pair of thick blacksmith's tongs in his left hand, created by said workshop, lifted the last sheet of mana-infused steel from the vat of oil.

Letting out a cool blow of air atop the steaming steel sheet, Archie admired his handiwork for a few seconds. After dunking the previously molten red steel into the vat of oil, he ensured no cracks or other impurities made themselves known.

He held the sheet aloft for a moment longer before shaking it slightly, letting the excess oil drip back into the basin before stepping to the side. His Reinforced Deepiron Thornback Boots thudded softly against the smoothed stone floor as he reached the slightly singed wooden crate atop his wooden workshop table, now half full of freshly tempered steel sheets that were perfect for rune and runic script practice.

Archie stared at the crate for a moment, then a thought struck him. Taking a few steps back, he flicked the tongs and sent the steel sheet sailing through the air. It clattered neatly into the crate, landing atop the others with a satisfying clatter. He smirked.

God, I'd kill for a game to watch, Archie thought to himself wistfully. Any type: Video game, basketball, baseball, football... hell, I'd even watch cricket.

The thought hit him, and his face slowly twisted in disgust.

I can't believe I even thought that. Jesus, this exhaustion's got me all kinds of messed up if I'm seriously considering cricket. I'd rather rewatch that magic pony show from start to finish than sit through a single match of that.

Letting out a slow, measured breath, Archie returned the tongs to the floating Tool Rack made out of mana hovering beside the Obsidiansteel Anvil. He waited until he heard the tongs click into place on the tool rack – he'd rather not have a repeat of it falling on his head when he turned away or have it bounce off the anvil and bounce directly into the mouth of the forge… again.

Turning from the rack, Archie took a moment to roll his shoulders, letting his posture loosen as the heat from the forge faded behind him. Forgesmith's Flame lets out some serious heat.

He strode the few feet to the side and retrieved the wooden crate filled with the recently forged steel sheets before he slid the crate into his spatial storage.

His eyes drifted to the open entrance of his base in the side of the hill to his left, and for a moment, he simply took in the view around him.

The lush green sea of trees with their leaves shaking in the gentle afternoon wind. The fallen and crunchy-looking leaves rustling on the grass below. The Obscuring Stakes he'd jammed into the ground around his Basic Workshop – Blacksmith hours earlier, their activated runes emitting a faint glow of blue, drawing in and stifling the noise of both him forging and the overall commotion of the forest.

A necessary precaution, given how loud his hammering was.

Then his eyes caught movement.

Something small, brown, and wiggling flew through the air – and landed with a soft plap onto a mound of grass. Another shape soon followed, catapulted even higher, limbs flailing in excited chaos before hitting the earth with a cartwheeling bounce.

Archie blinked.

There in the clearing, Volos and Arsenic had somehow constructed a seesaw that they used to launch themselves into the air. A thin, yet durable twig balanced over a triangular stone, their long-segmented bodies launching one another into the air with increasingly daring flips, twirls, and occasional twists.

They didn't notice him watching – too caught up in their makeshift acrobatics.

Archie stared for a long moment, stunned by the sheer absurdity – and brilliance of what they've done.

Five days old... he thought, a soft huff escaping his nose and folding his arms as a smile tugged at his lips. And my boys are already geniuses.

Making a seesaw before they even knew they existed.

Volos launched again, this time getting nearly a full rotation midair before crashing tail-first into a bundled-up pile of overgrown grass. Arsenic, thrilled, clapped his tiny forelimbs together, his venom glands glowing a happy green as he scrambled back into the launching position on the seesaw.

Rolling himself out of the pile of overgrown grass, Volos scurried just in front of where Arsenic stood on the twig and manipulated the earth beneath him to rise. Reaching the height of his control at eleven inches, he leaped into the air, performing a flip or two before landing on the raised twig and propelling Arsenic into the air while the thin earth column behind him sank back into the earth perfectly – grass and all.

Archie didn't disturb their fun.

As Arsenic once more hurled Volos into the air with the seesaw they made, Archie smiled faintly and turned on his heel, letting the soft laughter-like clicks of their mandibles fade behind him as he stepped back into his Basic Workshop – Blacksmith.

Back at his workshop table, Archie exhaled slowly and placed his hands on the singed and worn wood, clearing a space between scattered shrapnel and brushed aside tools. With a thought, his spatial storage shimmered open, and he began pulling the cores out one by one.

Beastcores, Insectiod Cores, Undead Cores, and an Elementalcore.

All of them. Some clear as glass, others opaque and cloudy. Many shimmered faintly, reacting to the heat that permeated the workshop due to Forgesmith's Flame. He laid them out in rows from new to old:

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Thornback Render Beastcores, Emberlash Eudromaeosaur Beastcores, Venomspitter Ant Insectoid Cores, Chameleon Locust Insectoid Cores, Osteophage Wight Cores, Bonekiin Elf Cores, Bonekiin Dwarf Cores, Bonekiin Human Cores, Lava Wraith Elementalcores, Magma Spider Insectoid Cores, and Resonance Bat Beastcores.

Archie eyed the undead cores with uncertainty before shaking his head slightly. If they work, then they work.

Grabbing a Thornback Render Beastcore and his crucible from the floating Tool Rack, Archie placed the core into the crucible, then slid both into the mouth of the forge. As he did, both Gaze of the Forgesmith and Vital Sight activated in tandem.

Outside the workshop, a pair of soft thuds echoed faintly as one of the centipede twins, Volos, crashed into the bundled-up mound of grass with a delighted, chittering squeal.

Archie licked his dried, cracked, and soot-coated lips as he poured the activated and primed Lava Wraith Elemental Core atop a flat sheet of Meteoric Iron that hummed faintly with spatial mana.

He watched with bated breath as the Elementalcore and Meteoric Iron began to bond. His 832 Perception stat strained to capture every detail, every shift, every flicker of change.

Archie's eyes swept over the surface of the metal as it started to settle, tracking each individual grain as it aligned and fused with the core.

Then, he saw it. One grain of Meteoric Iron shimmered faintly red. A heartbeat later, that same grain began to bubble.

Without hesitation, Archie's right hand snapped to the side, smacking the sheet away toward the forest. Mid-flight, the entirety of the metal turned molten red before detonating in a burst of molten slag, painting everything around it in molten slag sparks.

For fuck's sake, Archie groaned, lowering his hands from the top of his head where they'd been shielding the hidden forms of Volos and Arsenic who'd been giving him a head massage.

That's six failures in a row now, Archie noted with a sigh, rubbing his forehead in exasperation, eyes closed. At least it didn't explode in giant, thin, molten spiderweb-like threads and almost flatten Volos.

Opening his eyes, Archie took note of the dried slag scattered across both the forest patch around him and the stone floor of his workshop. As he stepped forward, a shard crunched beneath his boot. His gaze shifted back toward the only successful core fuse in his experimentation: the Resonance Bat Beastcore.

Meteoric Iron Sheet (Uncommon):
A thin sheet of Meteoric Iron forged by Archie Gracefield, an E-Grade Novice Forgesmith. The innate spatial mana within the Meteoric Iron sheet has become further enhanced by an E-Grade Resonance Bat Beastcore. Effect: Spatial Equalizer. Status: Excellent.

It was perfect for a satellite dish or whatever the equivalent of one for spatial signals was called.

And he only had a singular Resonance Bat Beastcore left. One success out of eleven.

The experiment failures were always one of three results. One, the mana within the core and Meteoric Iron became like water in hot oil. Two, the cores like the undead ones had absolutely overwhelmed the affinity of the metal. And three, absolute zero reaction.

He stepped back and raked a hand through his hair.

Obviously, a spatial elemental core would be perfect, he thought bitterly. But I don't have one… and I don't know where I'd even start…

…probably space, he answered himself as Volos and Arsenic stopped their massage and made their way down his arms and onto the table.

He stared at the rows of cores in silence, a slow tension building in his jaw.

He had a week and a half left. That was all. Just ten more days before the final day of the bet.

Archie sighed, fingers tapping absently on the edge of the table. Even if he did go out searching now, what were the odds of just stumbling upon a spatial Elementalcore out in the wilds without a spaceship? Practically none. And even if he could buy one…

He grimaced. He had a few Gold Coins to his name, but nowhere near enough to cover even a fraction of the cost of the spatial Elementalcores he'd seen on display in the shops in Neo-Eden.

He reached forward and gently rolled the last Resonance Bat Beastcore beneath his palm.

The Resonance Bat Beastcore rolled to a stop against his palm as it reached the edge of his table, its frosted interior catching light reflected off from the twin suns above. Archie stared at it for a long moment, lips pressed thin.

It wasn't going to work.

Not the way he'd planned it to.

He popped the kinks in his back with a tired sigh, staring up at the bright blue, partially cloudy sky.

Guess I'll just have to build most of the damn thing without any cores, he decided. I'll have to layer it entirely in protective runes and scripts to make sure it won't just explode and let the spatial satellite dish be the only component of the teleporter that's fused with a core.

The Power Core in his bike, once taken out of his Nature-Attuned Runic Mana Engine, would route through the spatial gem he got from the Paleos – acting as a current converter, transforming standard mana into spatial mana to fuel the teleporter. And finally, the Livingwood Propagator would serve as the signal transmitter.

He rubbed his face with both hands and let the tension bleed from his shoulders as his ears tuned back to the ambience of the forest.

Hearing chittering from beside him, he turned his head and froze.

Inside the metal crate filled with cores, the infant spirit beasts had made themselves quite at home. Arsenic perched atop a Venomspitter Ant Insectoid Core, happily gnawing at it, his drool and venom hissing as they sizzled against the surface. Meanwhile, Volos rummaged through the crate with growing frustration, clicking and whimpering as he dug through the pile in search of a core to munch on.

Clearing his throat, Archie watched as Arsenic froze mid-bite. Slowly, the little creature turned his head, eyes wide with guilt, like a toddler caught red-handed, his face and upper body were smeared with drool and venom.

Archie stared at him for a moment, trying to hold it in… but then he chuckled, the action slipping out despite himself.

He plucked both the core and Arsenic from the crate, inspecting them closely.

Two things became immediately clear: the bite marks left in the core rendered it completely useless for forging, and Arsenic, apparently, had no trouble eating cores.

You're lucky this isn't volatile for ya, he thought to himself, shooting Arsenic a pointed look before carefully setting him back down. Without missing a beat, Arsenic resumed munching on the Venomspitter Ant Insectoid Core.

Archie turned toward Volos, who had abandoned his rummaging and was now sitting back, staring forlornly at the last core within the crate.

Archie raised a brow. Looking for an Earth core, huh?

Volos made a low, pitiful clicking noise and flattened his body dramatically onto the table.

Archie laughed again, softer this time. He crouched beside the table, patting the top of Volos' head. 'Sorry, bud, I don't have any Earth Elemental Cores.'

Volos wiggled in response to his head pats but remained sulking.

Arsenic, as if sensing the emotional turmoil of his brother, leaped off the Venomspitter Ant Insectoid Core he was eating from and rolled a Thornback Render Beastcore toward Volos. Volos stared at it blankly before turning away.

Not wanting to deal with a sad Volos, Archie let out a sigh as he scoured the forest in front of them.

[Stonefang Adder Lv 17]

Picking up the both of them by their midsections, ignoring the protests of Volos, Archie then placed them in his hair, beneath his headdress, and headed towards the Stonefang Adder.