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

Timon

Why'd it have to be Deepscales? He hated Deepscales. At least he could respect most of the other secretive races out there, but these things? Deepscales were the worst. They were always so serious, never any time for fun or relaxation. Plus, their sense of style was horrendous. It didn't help anything that his ex had run off with one, either. Of course, that was after trying to kill him.

Guess it was as good as anytime to really anchor up his lair. He hadn't been sure whether he was going to do it or not. He hadn't really needed anything beyond the bus in his life as of late. Things seemed to changing fast though. The fact that he had been around a single planet this long was unusual, the more he thought about it. But Mel had been right, this was more fun than he'd had in a century.

Now the real question was what he needed to add to it. It wasn't the biggest place yet, and all he really used it for was when he wanted to keep things entirely separate from the System storage. While he wasn't one of those lunatics who assumed everything was a conspiracy, he didn't fully trust that they were wrong either. So while he was willing to use the System most of the time, he liked keeping some backups outside of its influence just in case.

Now the real question was, could he place an anchor inside the bus? He had unlocked a second one long ago when he first considered this idea, but he had never gotten around to trying it. Too many other things had taken up his time. There were a lot of questions he actually needed answered about his demiplane now that he thought about it. It was a good thing Dave had had the foresight to discover a long-lost mad scientist alive then.

That thought made the mantis laugh out loud as he ate another serving of dinner, alone at a table in the corner of the hall. He ignored the eyes that turned to look at him. It was for the best that they kept thinking he was the weird eccentric guy he liked to pretend to be.

Actually, pretend was too strong a word. Timon really was that guy deep down. That was the layer below the layer below the surface. It was just that he existed in reality, and you couldn't be the party animal or class clown your whole life. Sometimes, you had to make sure you had the right skills to protect the idiots who were too stupid to do it themselves.

That right there rubbed on one of his biggest life regrets. He wished Mel had told him sooner about what had happened to Melhelm VII. If he had been on the case from the start, they might have found the kid. But by the time he had any leads, he was off to a prison world even the mantis couldn't break into.

Timon let himself show a rare scowl, likely further confusing the people watching, but he didn't care. He had liked that kid. He had a spunk about him that reminded him of the Twinoges in a way, or even Glorp. If Mel had finally decided to get off his floating ass and rescue him, then yeah, he was on board. Danger be damned, he had always wanted to test himself against a Master of Cages anyway.

He finished off his stew in two rapid gulps. They were going to need their own prison for the Deepscales, and he had just the place to put one. That was assuming he could figure out how to do it.

Glunderlin

While the former mayor of Smithtown still missed their old home dearly, he also knew that this city was a much better start for his people. Alexandria represented the first time the Reltleons had truly been welcomed to a faction, and not just allowed to be there. He couldn't believe the investment Dave was even making in the children. An actual school was nearly unheard of unless you were born to luxury, and yet here all of the children were allowed to attend and learn from some of the strongest channelers he had ever personally met.

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Despite that, he often found himself deeply worried about the future. The fact that even the paladins had vanished with still no word from Hub City was a terrible sign. The loss of the highways would be a devastating blow. He needed to find a way to contact the Hub City at the center of the highways, if only to learn what had happened there.

But how could he actually help? His skills were in people management and city building. Hell, his class was literally just Mayor, and that was a position he didn't really hold anymore. They had formed a city council to handle the growing town, and he supported that entirely. He was even on the council itself.

That was just part of the underlying problem, though. He wanted to feel more useful. He wanted to help more of his people. But he was an old man. Then again, Mel had set off on a journey that he could only assume was to do the same. So how did he, a Reltleon long past his prime, do the same?

The answer was obvious when he considered it. The school didn't just have to be for children. He was sure that if he asked, they'd let him into some of the classes. But what did he want to train toward? He needed a goal if he wanted to make proper use of the school.

He sat and considered everything he wanted: the restoration of the highways, a safe home for his people, and a chance for the next generations to know happiness. That meant he needed something that had been left behind in the broken, cast-off world of his people.

Could he find a way to reclaim the lost Soul of the Reltleon class? Was he even worthy of taking that mantle on himself? He doubted it, but he was going to try anyway. Even if he failed, someone else would try to follow in his footsteps, and that was all that really mattered anyway.

Rabyn

The Orc was happy for his apprentice, somehow his very first true apprentice, despite how long he had been a chef. The breakthrough on his core was fantastic for how short of time he had worked on it. Did Dave even understand how insane his whole family was at their rapid growth? Sure, Rabyn was still stronger than them one-on-one, maybe, Dave might actually be able to take him these days. But it had taken him much longer to get where he was.

It was hard to believe they came from a mana-barren universe with this level of growth. That, like many other things, continued to make him question the nature of what was really going on. The coin still hadn't shown any new letters, which didn't help his nagging worry.

Neither did the fact that Dave had yet again failed to remove his soul knot. Whatever those damn Jesters had done seemed stuck. He closed his eyes and worked to control the rage that had flared as he thought about that. It didn't help anything to let the old anger take control.

He had a kitchen to run. He had people to train. And most of all, he had people to prepare amazing meals for.

"The humans call this sushi, I suspect it might be to your liking," Rabyn said as he set a plate in front of Red.

Despite the fact that his arm still itched like hell most days, he had decided to make peace with the polar bear. It wasn't the bear's fault that the dungeon energy had caused them to rage so badly, and if anything, Rabyn understood being stuck in a world you never wanted to be part of. Toward that end, he has personally been making the bear a new meal every day as they discovered which foods still fit her palate.

Red carefully worked one of the pieces of sushi into her mouth. Rabyn had worked with her on table manners several times, and to his surprise, she had been very receptive. She wanted to understand humans more, and she considered that learning what they did normally would help.

"I like this, it reminds me of the salmon of my youth, the rice is interesting with it though. I would not have thought of trying that together. What is the green stuff on the plate?" she asked.

"Wasabi, some humans find it incredibly spicy. I'm not sure I would make the same claim, but as you are also a mammal, it wouldn't surprise me if you did," Rabyn answered.

Despite the warning, the bear dipped her next piece into it before eating it. "Hm, yes, I can see why they claim that. I do like it, though. It pairs well," she replied.

"So should we add this to the list of foods you enjoy?" Rabyn asked, eyeing her rapidly dwindling plate.

"Yes, but would it be possible to do a whole meal around this for the other students. I think a lot of them would like it as well?" She asked.

"Of course. I'll have the staff plan out a nice meal for next week. Any other requests?" This was part of what Rabyn liked most about finding new foods for the bear. She always wanted to share them with her fellow classmates. That she was overcoming her rage so quickly was something he deeply respected.

"Hmm, I know I didn't like the cheesecake, but a lot of the others did. Could you bring some of those as well?" Her smile looked like she was ready to pounce, but Rabyn knew she was trying.

"I'll have Gorpila prepare several varieties," Rabyn said.

That brought his mind to another conversation he needed to have that he wasn't looking forward to. Gorpila needed to go part-time in the kitchen, whether she wanted it or not. He wouldn't stop her entirely, no, she had too much of a passion to ever deprive her of that. But she needed to be in the school too, as did the rest of Glorp's siblings. Hell, Rabyn wasn't sure Glorp shouldn't be as well. He decided that was a conversation to have with Dave and Pryte. For now, he would handle Gorpila, though.

Glorp

He hoped his uncle was still alive. The time he and his siblings had spent on the funeral rites for his parents had driven home how much he missed them, and by extension, his wider family. While mostly everyone on Earth had been great so far, and some of them had even filled that empty spot somewhat, he wanted to learn more about his parents' lives. And that meant hoping that Glarppp was still alive.

Surprisingly, he had found some of the man's works in the archives. Elody had pulled out two books he had written. Glorp had had no idea he had even been a writer. There was so little he knew about his family's history. All he really knew was the struggle to keep his brother and sisters alive.

He would read those soon enough, but first, he needed to get through the math textbooks he had gotten from Dave. During the funeral, certain things had occurred to him, one of the biggest being that he was wasting this new chance at life he had been given. He was on a new world surrounded by unimaginable technology, and he no longer had to struggle to survive. He had smart people all around him who could help if he got stuck. Which meant it was time for him to learn everything he could.

Some of his education turned out to be far more behind than he had initially realized. What little he knew about basic math put him at the level of young children, according to Elody and Dave. So that was the first thing he had vowed to fix. His only excuse was how useless most math had been in his earlier life. He could count and do basic addition and subtraction, but that was as far as it had gone.

Now, as he got deeper into his new class abilities, not to mention his core affinities, it was becoming plainly obvious how important math could be. Running very fast was great and all, but if you didn't understand the speed relative to the forces around you, well, things got weird very fast. Glorp didn't want to accidentally kill anyone or destroy anything just because he was moving at super speeds, and that meant he needed to understand more math.

Dave had also told him something about physics and how that interplayed with it all, but had also recommended he work on the math first. Glorp had left that talk with instructions to see either Dave himself, Karlinovo, or Elody if he ran into any walls in his learning. They had also strongly suggested the school, but he wasn't sure he was ready for that yet. If he was this far behind, he'd rather not let all the others see that.

Instead, he plopped the math book down on the table in the small room he had claimed for practice today. Next, he pulled out a whiteboard and a set of markers from his System storage, a gift from Dave that he quite liked, and placed them on the table next to the book. Finally, he flipped the book open to the chapter on multiplication and began to write out the first few problems. He would get this down today, no matter how long it took.

Mastery classes are almost a misnomer in and of themselves. Most people are unaware of exactly what one is, let alone how someone was able to obtain the class. They are not just a mastery of the name coupled with the class. They are a fusion of several classes together, all of which have been pushed to their limits into something else.

While most classes tend to follow their own path, as aligned with their host. Mastery classes are nearly unique from the start. Part of the reason they are so unique is because of their base classes' deviations toward their host. They are the combination of several deviated classes into an even more deviated class, tailor-made for the person who undertook the unification of their classes.

The path of the master is not an easily trodden one. For one thing, you have to be capable of acquiring at least three classes. Then you have to push so much experience into each of them that they enter a state of evolution. Once that state is started, it must immediately be stopped until you have all the class orbs ready to go. Retrigger the state in each, and force them together as you active your own core fortification.

If this is all done right, then your core fortification energy will be aborted and instead be used to join the classes into something greater than the sum of its parts. The first step of the long path of mastery has been started once the orb is safely in your core. Remember, though, that this is only the first step on a never-ending journey. Grand mastery sits above simple mastery, and still above that, there is rumored to be an even stronger form of class orbs.

Mastery, Grand Master, and Beyond by Florcal Grand Master of Mastery