Magical Engineering [Progression Fantasy, LitRPG] (Book 3 Complete)

The nap had only lasted about thirty minutes, which was enough to refresh any of my earlier mana usage in the day. As long as I kept a full stomach and got a reasonable amount of rest, it had become incredibly easy to keep my mana pools full. A secondary side effect I had started to notice was that I seemed to need less sleep.

I had looked into this, and it turned out, unsurprisingly, there was an attribute that corresponded to sleep deprivation and just how much your body needed. Unlocking it would require a long stint at foregoing sleep, and while I was entirely willing to deep dive into my training, I liked sleep too much to go for that just yet. There had yet to be a point in my new life where being awake for days on end was critical.

That wasn't to suggest I didn't plan to unlock it one day. There were just many other things I considered a priority. The only real draw I saw to it was the potential to add more time to my day, but knowing me, I'd likely still end up sleeping when I could.

As I walked the the workshop, I pulled up a chat window.

"Watch my back, but try not to kill anyone," I said moments after we appeared on the floor and the cores had been removed from my storage.

I charged through the streets, ignoring the various people who showed up to block my path. In theory, we had about ten minutes before the big guy would notice me, which should be just enough time to alter the simulation in a way I hadn't tried. I spotted Connie and Glorp exactly as they had been when we first encountered them on the floor.

"Hey there, this is likely going to sound strange, but you seem the kind of person who'd make a great ally. I flared a large fireball in my hand as I said this, staring down the Vulterians that had them surrounded.

"Huh, what, who are you?" the Dwarf yelled, sounding surprised at my appearance.

"Dave, is that you? You look different!" Glorp exclaimed, his voice the opposite of Connie's.

This was a very strange situation, and I wondered how those two would take it once I was finally able to get them into the simulator as well. They looked exactly the same as they had that day. Pushing some of the unnerving sight out of my mind, I answered. "It is me, Glorp, and it's complicated to explain why I seem different. But suffice it to say, if we want to get off the floor alive, I need your help, Connie."

"Still not sure how you know my name, but I suppose if the kid knows you, I can trust you for now. What exactly do you need my help with?" she asked.

Dave hadn't noticed it the first time, but now it seemed obvious to him. There was something in her voice on meeting him here. Had it been there originally, or was it an effect caused by the feedback? They had learned more about her real mission much later than this point, so it seemed unlikely the simulation would be able to copy any of her secret information, so it had to be just recreating exactly what it saw the first time. It was probably worth asking her about, even if I doubted it was anything nefarious.

I glanced over and made sure the Vulterians hadn't made any move. They were still frozen in place, looking at me with a bit of fear. "Well, as you can see, I'm a lot stronger than the average person on the floor. But that's just the average. There's a guy out here that can easily kill us all, and if we don't find a way to team up everyone against him, that's exactly how it's going to end up."

"That isn't how this place works, we can't all win!" one of the bird-like humanoids squawked out.

"True, but there's no reason we can't fight it out after the fact. Right now, as it stands, we will all lose. If we take the big guy out first, then we can at least get a few winners," I said, trying to remember exactly how many people could win this level again.

Was it only ten? Actually, for the matter, why couldn't they all win? These weren't exactly situations Mel had covered, and I doubted they occurred often enough to have many examples.

"Look, I'm good at what I do, but I'm not sure I'm talking an entire floor onto our side good," Connie answered.

"Fair, I can probably help with that a little," I said as I placed shields around everyone present. It was meant as a show of my strength. I hoped it would do some of the heavy lifting for Connie.

"Fancy," Connie said, flicking the shield around Glorp as she spoke. "Okay, these are pretty strong. Alright, birdbrains, enough trying to kill us. I don't care who paid you. You're on team Connie now!"

Had these people been one of the groups Korl had hired to kill us? I couldn't remember. Damn, that was something I likely needed to map out as well. Which forces started the floor already hunting us for money?

"Fine! But only because we know that the Divine Dynasty is in here somewhere," one of the Vulterians said.

"Exactly, glad we're on the same page," I replied with a half smile.

We spent the next ten minutes building our army, group after group. It turned out that the second I dropped shields around a new force, the less they wanted to fight us. At least that much had gone well, and possibly in future runs, I could speed up the process with that knowledge. Because as of now, we had only managed to get a dozen teams onto our side by the time the man attacked.

"Oh, interesting. Don't tell me you've decided to all team up, have you?" he said as he reached us.

"Yeah, big guy, and we're here to take you down!" Connie yelled from the back of the group.

That was the wrong thing to have said, at least for the simulation of Connie. For me, it meant I had the start of my distraction as he attacked her head-on. Our other assembled fighters, seeing their moment to pile onto the man, attacked as well. I instead pulled up a chat window with some quick orders.

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I kept the shields up, alternating healing as often as I could without draining any of my core reserves. I was going to need it all the second my fight with him started in earnest. As the shields started to explode, I knew that moment had come. I triggered overclock, poured my soul mana directly into my own shield, and went on the offensive.

I had pushed myself all the way up to an S-ranked core, and I could feel the drain set in immediately. On the other hand, my shield's strength managed to block a blow he had previously gone straight through it with before. The energy from the impact crackled along his fist and pushed him backward.

As he rebounded, shock plain on his face, Alpha hit him hard from behind. I followed up by amplifying the gravity as much as I could below him and launching fireball after fireball into him. I triggered sever the bonds as I felt him strain against my other magic.

At least here, whatever radiation I unleashed, we wouldn't have to spend a month cleaning up this time. I targeted his body with my blast. It hadn't worked the last time I had done this, but this time I was a lot stronger, and he had hopefully been greatly weakened. At first, it seemed like he was trying to shoot a fireball from his mouth. Then the explosion grew.

His body atomized itself in front of me. I managed to catch that at least before the force rocketed me across the city. As soon as I safely crashed down, I killed my overclock, needing the rest of my energy for whoever was still standing on the floor. I coughed several times as I forced myself to stand up. The dungeon cores were all floating around me, looking no worse for wear.

"Alright, now that that's done. I'm going to sit here and try to heal myself, you three, head out and start wiping out the rest of the floor. I'll join you as soon as I'm able," I said, as I saw just how much radiation I had absorbed this time and made a note to myself never to do anything like this outside of the Arena or simulator.

In the end, there was nothing else I needed to do. And that was an incredibly fortunate thing, as I had severely underestimated how much that radiation had fucked up my internals. Some of my skin had actually started to fall off just before the simulation ended. It was an experience I hoped not to have to repeat.

Three things occurred to me while I slumped forward in my chair as the simulation ended. That was a new System message. Apparently, it was possible to make your read out too long. The second thing was that I had gained more experience than I had on the tenth floor of the Arena, which almost made the months I had spent at this worth it. I still hadn't caught up to half my squad, but I was getting there. The third and final thing was that my head hurt like hell, and I was ravenously hungry.

I pulled up a message window, worried about how Corey had handled this.

As I walked toward the great hall, I pulled up my log and checked through some of the messages from that floor completion. Apparently, the big guy was a human paragon of excellence, with an S-grade core. That explained a ton of the experience, as did the fact that my unoccupied squad positions had kept doubling for all fourteen missing squad members.

That fight had pushed me right back to my current level cap, which meant tomorrow was actually going to be a new fortification day. There was no sense wasting the experience and just filling out my class when I could just as easily push up my maximum level. Plus, I could really use more skill points.

Since I had learned about the competition for the brothers' world, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I couldn't shake. Nothing ever went easy for us, and that meant we were going to face off against someone far more capable than any of us were at the moment. Just considering what it had taken me to win the first floor Arena on my own made me sure of that. There was still no way I could have taken that guy in a simple one-on-one fight.

I sat down at the table, out of breath from the simple walk, and absolutely famished. As I was regaining some of my energy in preparation for heading to the buffet, John instead surprised me by dropping a plate of food in front of me on the table. It smelled wonderful.

"Maud said you and Corey sounded exhausted from a message, and that you were on your way here, so I figured it was better you stay sitting and I bring you some food," he said with a smile.

"Yeah, might have overdone it with some training. Then again, I've done a lot worse. I was able to get here this time, and Corey is still able to speak, so in comparison, this was a pretty successful day," I said, as I grabbed a fork and popped a small purple roasted potato into my mouth.

As I bit into the flavors exploded on my tongue. John had already been an amazing chef before Rabyn, but he had climbed to all-new levels these days. He could easily run a world-renowned restaurant at this point. Actually, now that I thought about it, I supposed he did. There were people from all over the world in the room, chowing down on the food he and the others prepared.

"Did you at least finally get the breakthrough you had been chasing?" he asked, grabbing a seat next to me.

"I think so. The cores and I finally found a way to beat the first floor of the Arena alone. In theory, we should be able to replicate it, but once I start applying actual modifiers, I imagine it's going to take even more out of me. I'm hoping a core fortification will help with that," I replied.

"Oh yeah? Do those hurt much? I'm sitting there myself these days. Maud said it wasn't bad, but I'm worried about what will happen to some of my cooking skills if I trigger it," he replied.

I hadn't realized he had already managed to grow his core to his first fortification. He had done it faster than I had. Rabyn's tutelage must have been working great.

"It doesn't really hurt, you feel a bit strange and weak afterwards, but there shouldn't be pain. As for your skills, they won't regress as long as you top back off the levels fast enough. And if you're already here, I imagine you can do that again," I answered.

"Huh, okay, well, then when you do your next one, mind if I join you and take care of mine as well?" he asked, sounding a bit nervous.

"Of course, I'd be glad to have you. Why don't you go grab yourself a plate, and we can talk about where you're at exactly," I said, smiling reassuringly at him.

He gave me a quick nod before standing up. While he did that, I dug more into my own plate. How had he managed to make the celery so tasty?

Gelatinous life comes in a wide variety across the many universes that make up the Spiral, and likely an even greater assortment if a true assessment of chaotic space were ever performed. The easiest way to classify them seems to be their immunity to dungeon energies. In fact, they often find hiding places to prey on unsuspecting core beasts or adventurers within them, as the dungeon itself provides a layer of safety for them.

I would suggest a type of symbiotic relationship here, but not enough is known about dungeon cores and their interactions with the various monsters that try to inhabit their lairs. Considering the number of core beasts that have been eaten by a powerful slime or flan, it would seem hard to believe this benefits the dungeon in any way. Plus, every dead adventurer is a potential host denied to a dungeon core.

A general rule when encountering one of these creatures is to remember that their color almost always dictates their elemental weaknesses. Note, I said almost always. Any of these creatures that have lived long enough to begin their own true development and gained some sapience could easily have found a way to overcome their initial weaknesses, or found a way to camouflage them. It is important, then, when fighting anything that seems intelligent, to assess the fight carefully and not go off half cocked.

It should also be noted that these creatures multiply by splitting off a part of themselves, and will eventually grow into a near duplicate of the original. They can, in rare instances, fuse with another creature as well. The exact requirements needed for a successful joining have yet to be determined, as studying these creatures is difficult. They are notoriously hard to contain, despite the numerous attempts to do so.

Every single attempt at setting up any sort of gelatinous farm or ranch has ended in complete disaster. Despite how valuable the materials their leftovers can be, the danger in attempting to contain them has time and time again proven greater than the wealth they can generate. Every single attempt thus far has ended in financial ruin.

Remember this simple saying to stay safe when dealing with these creatures. Strive to avoid the slime. Just ignore the jelly. Fight the flan. Prune the pudding.

Gelatinous Life by Elody Lylin Rels, Paladin of Knowledge