NOVEL NEXT Chapter 176 - Helping
Archie crouched just past the shadow of the cave mouth, boots pressing into the patch of flat, blackened dirt he'd spent the morning leveling and tiling with Meteoric Iron plates– mentally grumbling the whole time about how bullshit it was that if the ground beneath the teleporter was even an inch off from the calculations, he could end up anywhere from inside a sun to someone's sink drain halfway across the Universe.
He was exaggerating, of course, but the possibility was still there, considering how being off by even a fraction of an inch over long distances could cast him wildly off course.
The forest around them was quiet save for the occasional squawking of birds and the rustle of leaves high above. Wisps of afternoon light pierced the canopy and cast dappled patterns across the Meteoric Iron plates he'd tiled over the leveled ground.
Volos dragged a long root-gnawed stick behind him, mandibles still dusted in what little was left of the Burrowing Bunny Beastcore. His antennae twitched every few seconds, slow and content. Arsenic waddled up beside him, shell slick with a sheen of tree sap and venom stains.
Neither one was in a hurry, their small, round shapes plodding steadily across the clearing toward their human.
Archie, still kneeling, wiped his hands clean on a thick cloth before opening one of the flat wooden crates beside him. He reached inside and carefully pulled free a metal component, a crescent-shaped grounding fin, only partially forged from the Meteoric Iron. The rest had been alloyed with steel and fitted with silver-threaded inlays.
He set the fin down on the Meteoric Iron tiles, just above where he marked the anchor line would begin, and ran his fingers along the fin's grooves to ensure that its measurements were apt enough to fit the support brace once everything was assembled.
Volos finally came to a stop beside him and flopped unceremoniously onto his side, antennae curling in an idle figure-eight as he stared at the fin. Arsenic eased down nearby, already curling one claw around a broken ant core he hadn't yet finished.
Archie reached up, catching both of their attention with a small snap of his fingers. He signed in smooth, practiced motions. 'No, I am not done yet.'
This was the seventh time today they had asked if he was finished, eager to play with him once he was.
Arsenic's mandibles clacked both slowly and lazily toward its brother. Volos responded by dragging himself forward a few more centimeters and tapping the ground beside the etched circle with one of his forelegs.
'This. Here?' he signed with his feet.
Archie nodded.
He stood and moved around to the other side of the outline, carefully picking up the second crescent fin from another crate. With each step, he mentally rechecked his spacing, the runic scripts beneath the circle had to stay completely undisturbed – else big boom.
He knelt again and positioned the second fin opposite the first, lining it up just so with the faint scoring he'd made with a spell the day before.
A warm breeze picked up. The grass nearby swayed slightly, carrying the scent of the nearby forge hill and the faint, lingering trace of ozone from his last activation spell. It was peaceful, almost too much so, considering how much precision this next part would demand.
Archie sat back on his heels and brought up his Status Page.
Archie Gracefield
Race: Human E-Grade Lv 99 [Evolution Pending]
Class: Nature-Attuned Pugilist Lv 99 [Evolution Pending]
Profession: Novice Forgesmith Lv 97
Health: 12757/12757
Mana: 6500/6500
Stamina: 14308/14308
Vitality: 945 (1275)
Strength: 1312 (1968)
Endurance: 1022 (1430)
Agility: 640 (832)
Intelligence: 520 (676)
Wisdom: 500 (650)
Willpower: 327 (457)
Perception: 640 (832)
Free Points: 0
General Skills: Identify (Common), Nature's Meditation (Epic), Vital Sight (Radiant), Spirit Link (Epic), Botanokinesis (Initiate)
Class Skills: Leeching Strikes of Fury (Uncommon), Savage Charge (Epic), Adrenaline Rush (Legendary), Vital Metabolism (Epic), Retaliation (Rare), Relentless Flurry (Rare), Primal Roar (Radiant), Thornscourge Expansion (Epic), Spirit Bond (Rare), Last Stand (Rare), Earthen Grasp (Uncommon), Sixth Sense (Uncommon), Hyper Impact (Uncommon)
Profession Skills: Forgesmith's Flame (Uncommon), Mana Smithing Mastery (Uncommon), Advanced Runic Mastery (Uncommon), Material Insight (Rare), Gaze of the Forgefather (Radiant), Core Resonance Forging (Rare), Runic Amplification (Rare), Whispers of the Forge (Radiant), Runic Archive (Epic), Elastic Sizing (Rare), Runic Mending (Uncommon), Runic Cloaking (Uncommon)
Bloodline: Adrenaline Junkie (Unique) [+10% to Strength and +10% to Willpower]
Affinity: Greater Nature Affinity (Epic)
Blessing: Blessing of the Forgefather (High) [+10% to Strength and +10% to Endurance]
Titles Collected: Bloodline Progenitor [+10 Vitality and +5% Vitality], Flawless E-Grade Evolution [+10 all Stats], Legendary Innovator [+20 to all Stats and +10% to all Stats], 72nd Universe's Harbinger [+20% to all Stats]
Seeing no change to his level, he nodded to himself, confirming his theory: since he considered everything he'd forged as part of the teleporter a single project, any levels or XP he might've gained from crafting the components individually and thinking them to be a part of a whole project wouldn't be awarded until the entire structure was complete.
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He dismissed it quickly and signed again to the both of them. 'Can one of you please pass me my runic scriber, it's in the rolled up toolkit?'
He'd put the toolkit together using a couple of leather straps he'd bought from Bill back during the Group Tutorial, mostly to keep Arsenic and Volos from accidentally triggering it and injuring themselves with all their constant movement and attempts to mimic everything he did.
Volos immediately perked up.
His legs twitched with excitement as he sprang into motion and scuttled over to the rolled-up toolkit resting under the table within his workshop. After a second of rummaging, the small insectoid returned with the kit clutched carefully in his front two mandibles.
He placed it beside Archie with care.
Archie gave him a quick hand sign and a pat on the head. 'Good job.'
With steady hands, he unrolled the kit and took out his Runic Scriber from within. He turned to the north point of the circle and leaned forward, letting the scriber hover for a second as he exhaled.
Then, with the quiet patience of someone who had failed many, many times before this attempt, Archie began to draw.
He'd only etched about one-third of the north stabilizer when Arsenic shifted behind him and let out a quiet click-huff, tapping one claw into the dirt.
Archie glanced back, hand still moving in etching out the mana pathways of the north stabilizer.
Arsenic lifted a half-cracked Venomspitter Ant Insectoid Core and gave it a small toss into the air before catching it with a claw and tapping it twice, mimicking when Archie had grabbed an apple from off a tree and had toyed around with it as he ate it.
Archie gave him a soft smile.
'Sorry, Arsenic,' he signed with his left hand. 'This shouldn't take more than a day until I finish. And when I do finish, we can play around for as long as you want. How's that sound?'
Arsenic clacked again, this time what might have been a low grunt of reluctant agreement. Volos chirped from his coiled sprawl nearby and signed, 'Can we play hunt again?'
Archie nodded in agreement as he smiled faintly before returning his full focus to etching out the north stabilizer.
The sun had shifted slightly by the time Archie finished the final curve of the north, west, and east stabilizers. He blew lightly on the visible mana pathways atop the Meteoric Iron tiling. Satisfied, he sat back on his heels and gave his wrist a slow roll, easing the tightness that had settled into his fingers after the long stretch of runic work.
Behind him, Arsenic had fallen half-asleep, his plated body nestled between two crate legs like a curled-up cat. Only one eyelid remained cracked open, lazily watching Archie in case something interesting happened. Volos had long since abandoned stillness entirely and now busied himself by building a little ring of rocks and half-gnawed bones around a cluster of glowing moss tufts, antennae twitching with quiet pride at his improvised décor.
Is this how parents feel when they see their child trying to copy what they're doing? Archie smiled as he felt a soft warmth blanket his heart.
Archie stretched slowly, spine popping as he stood. He walked a small semicircle around the teleporter's anchor site, checking the curvature of the outer ring, then returned to his worktable nearby, where a rolled scroll lay secured under a metal weight. He tugged it free and unrolled it across the table's surface, revealing a rough sketch of the teleporter's foundational geometry, covered in charcoal smudges and calculations.
He tapped one corner, where the southern stabilizer was marked in red. That would be next.
He turned back toward the outer circle, the breeze catching the edge of his scroll before he pinned it back down with a Cold Iron bar. While the diagram and calculations for the teleporter's anchor site had engraved itself in his mind with how often he went over it mentally, it was always good to have it nearby for him to be able to double-check that what he was doing was indeed correct.
He knelt again, beside the arc that marked the southern stabilizer's base, and brushed the Meteoric Iron plating with a careful hand, sweeping it clean of any dirt or dust that brushed upon it.
Behind him, Volos let out a pleased chitter. Archie turned slightly and watched as the young centipede delicately placed the last rock atop his own teleporter anchor site made out of moss, pebbles, and bone.
Volos then took a step back to admire his work. A few seconds later, the whole thing toppled with a soft clatter, pebbles and bones scattering across the dirt. Volos froze and turned to look at Archie, who gave him a few words of encouragement in sign language.
Without waiting a second longer, Volos got back to rebuilding.
Archie stifled a silent chuckle with a soft cough and returned back to finishing the teleporter anchor site. Arsenic had roused fully now and was dragging a flat piece of metal plating over with slow determination, using his claws to push it toward Archie. He stopped halfway and tapped the plate twice, a gesture that meant, 'You use this?'
Archie nodded with a thankful tilt of his head and signed back, 'Yes, I use a flat base in order to ensure everything is leveled for the stabilizers. Nice catch.'
Arsenic blinked in what might have been smug approval before curling up near one of the crates again, now idly clicking his jaws as he gnawed at the remains of a shattered core.
I can already tell how screwed I am when Arsenic enters puberty… if spirit beasts can even go through that. If they do, then…
Turning back to the work at hand, Archie retrieved one of the pre-etched mana-conductive rods made out of Meteoric Iron and Silver from beside the table with a quick application of Spatial Pull and set it gently beside the circle's southern edge. The etchings along its surface shimmered faintly in the sunlight.
One by one, he began installing them into the earth, pressing the rods into their shallow sockets and securing them into their designated sockets. Each one went in cleanly, and with each addition, the outer ring of the teleporter anchor site.
By the time the fourth rod was placed, the southern stabilizer's skeletal framework was visible, a crescent of faintly glowing channels running through atop the Meteoric Iron tiling.
Volos skittered up beside him, his antennae twitching.
'Can. Help. Now?' He signed, small forelimbs already brushing against one of the unused rods. "I. Strong. Too"
Archie considered for a moment, then offered a short nod, much to Volos' animated excitement. He reached for a blank rod from the box and handed it over, demonstrating the correct orientation with a brief flash of signs and hand movements. "You gotta do it like this, okay? Can you do that?"
Volos confidentally nodded in response as he began nudging the blank rod towards the skeletal frame of the stabilizer.