Might as Well

He stepped forward, sipping on his industrial-strength coffee, and took in the countless monitors, screens, projections, and doohickeys as they continuously showcased information about the game.

It had been quite nice recently.

Most of the player population was staying quiet, doing their usual grinding and killing each other. Just like in any MMO.

But Magic Unbound wasn’t just like any MMO. No. It was THE MMO.

And while the ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine percent of the players were utterly boring, the last zero-point-zero-one percent caused the biggest headache.

These were mostly separated by the Threat Assessment Team into different categories. The gold category was for rich people, mostly second-generation heirs who thought that the sun was shining from their assholes and nobody in their little bubble said no to them. They mostly kept an eye on them to avoid frivolous lawsuits and cheating. Most people had their money on one of the privileged assholes being the first one to be caught cheating.

He agreed with them.

Silver was for people who were important to the company. Relatives of workers and other associates. They were observed mostly to avoid people accusing them of collusion and cheating.

Bronze was for famous people. Celebrities, influencers, sports people, and other famous entities who felt they deserved more just because they knew how to kick a ball, or got naked in a movie about mutant rats or whatever.

Black was for known white and black hat hackers and anyone whom they felt was trying to find vulnerabilities in the game’s system. Selene kept an eye on them, ready to bring out the big guns if they even found a hairline fracture.

Vermilion, Viridian, and Azure were for people in the game. People who achieved records that were almost impossible, or unimaginable. People who achieved feats that the developers thought were beyond them.

Vermilion had the most people. These were, in general, the top players in the game. Viridian was the cream off the top. The pioneers. The inventors. The people who discovered things that should have been hidden. Who killed monsters that seemed to be invincible.

Then there was Azure.

Or as they called them in-house: the fuckers.

After some rebalancing and reevaluating their grading criteria in light of several events caused by one of the fuckers, it held only one person.

The chief fucker.

He was pretty sure the guy was cheating. Nobody was that good and talented. But no.

Dozens of private investigators found nothing. Selene reported no intrusions. They basically had nothing on him.

Hell, he was pretty close to believing in the theory that the guy was some kind of alien using their unknown technology to have fun on their vacation on a primitive planet. Or he was magic…

At this point, the leadership had decided that as long as the fucker didn’t do anything too exploitative, he could play.

When he heard the decision, he wanted to yell that anything the fucker did was exploiting something, but… THERE. WAS. NO. CONCRETE. EVIDENCE!

He said nothing that would show his sources, yet every action he took dripped with suspiciousness.

Then there was his ‘talent’ with mana control.

They designed the game with longevity in mind. They created skills that took time and effort to master. And here came the fucker with his adorable pet wolf and mastered it in record time.

Once again, without any evidence of cheating.

The fucker…

He was about to imagine how he could punish him when a soft chime went off near him. He froze, and he could see that everybody around the speaker which let out the chime, also froze.

Instead of replying immediately, he took another fortifying sip of his drink. Then, as he lowered the cup from his mouth, he let out a tired sigh.

“What is it, Selene?”

The gentle voice of the game’s system came from the speaker, as her beautiful face appeared on one of the nearby screens.

“You told me to report if that…fucker… has done anything noteworthy, sir,” she reported with an air of amusement. While the staff of Future Unknown despaired at the fucker’s actions, Selene thought it was simply funny.

“What did our most annoying customer do this time?”

He looked at the AI, and based on the smirk on her face, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answer.

“He created a ritual that allowed him to scan a great amount of area for fractures and found one of the Valleys of Distortions.”

For a moment, there was a complete silence in the room.

In the end, he broke it. “He-he created a ritual?”

“Yes, sir!” came the cheery reply. “He used an actual Ritual Master to carve the basic focus circles, then used his own skills to create an ad-hoc ritual for this purpose. The resolution of the scan wasn’t great, but it allowed him to find almost all the fractures in the area.”

“Ad-hoc ritual circle?” he was feeling rather faint.

She waved her hand a little. “I’m pretty sure he worked it out in real life, but he used Illusionary Runes to create the circles.”

“Circles?”

“Four circles, seven in total, sir.”

He closed his eyes and counted to ten. Then to a hundred before opening them again and looking at the amused AI. “Let me guess… no evidence of cheating?”

“Just pure skill and tenacity!”

“That fucker!”

He turned away from the laughing AI and began to yell. “Get me the stats! I want to see the recording! Someone check their destination! I want to know everything about that Valley! Chop-chop people before the fucker does something else annoying!”

There was a general noise as people hurried around. Keyboards clacked, mice clicked and computers made all sorts of noises.

Then, as he managed to calm himself down a little, Selene spoke up.

“He had one of his friends unbury an ancient outpost. Bye!” then she vanished from the screen.

He stared blankly at the dark screen for a long moment.

“OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

Liz was very surprised at how much she enjoyed crafting in Magic Unbound.

Usually, as a streamer, she preferred to play much more active classes to keep the watchers entertained. Plus, magic…

But ever since she found that crystal tablet, she had been delving deeper and deeper into crafting. Hell, even when she wasn’t playing, she was active on crafter forums, arguing about metal alloys, enchantments, and whatnot.

She even downloaded a few technical articles about topics she was a little confused about, while continuously lamenting about the fact she never finished her degree. ‘Though, why a degree in journalism would help, I don’t know…’

And then Sam came and threw that other tablet at her…

She was part happy and part angry about it. For one, it elevated her crafting skills to another level, on the other hand, she had to scrap almost every plan for her future projects thanks to the new information.

Lucy was not happy when Liz told her that, thanks to the new skills, she would need to restart Project Alexandria. Thankfully, most of that anger was directed at Sam. Then she revealed what changes she had planned and her boss instantly lost her anger and turned all sweet smiles and laughter.

Liz quickly retreated to her workshop, which had recently become her haven, before Lucy decided to do something to her.

She took a moment to center herself, dressed in her usual overalls, which left just enough space to keep the perverts from complaining but covered everything to keep herself from feeling weird. Then she pulled out some materials, made sure her adorable drones were doing okay, checked that the few she had set up to manufacture light fittings and other miscellaneous stuff for the hotels and supermarkets were also working without any issues, and sat at her streaming desk. She took a small cloth and covered the items on the desk.

In a minute, the stream was online.

“Hello everyone! Drone Jr, come say hello!”

One of her newer drones, at least a hundred percent more adorable than the first ones she created, obediently floated over and bobbed around as if bowing before the stream.

Instantly, the chat was flooded with exclamations and emoticons.

“As usual, today is a crafting stream,” she announced and smiled as she read the happy reactions.

- Finally! I have been waiting for a week! I want to see cute drones with deadly weapons!

- Gatling gun go brrrrrr

- Mama wants big booms!!

- What are you going to build, Rose?

“I’m glad you asked!” She then dramatically pulled the cloth away from the items. “Today, we are going to build a grenade launcher!”

- WOW

- Mama got big booms!

- I want to have your babies Rose

- Can I has grenade launcher too?

- Are you going to sell it?

She read the chat, ignored the silly ones, and chose one of the more serious ones to answer. “Sorry, but my contract prevents me from selling the weapons. But rest assured, you’ll be able to see my cute drones destroy monsters with them!”

She picked up one of the metal alloys and held it up to the camera.

“So, as you can see, I have been doing some research and managed to put together a pretty nice alloy that will allow some good mana conductivity.” She took a cute stance and sent a small kiss at the camera. “And no. I’m not sharing the recipe!”

She pulled out one of her tools and began to shape the metal while keeping up some small talk with the chat.

“So, what’s up with you guys? Anything interesting in the big damage world?”

Instantly, the chat was flooded, but Liz just smiled, nodded when appropriate, and made all the right noises as she worked. She did not doubt that Tim would be combing through those chat logs.

With the stream over, she lost her smile; her face hurting a little, but still, she was in a great mood. Lots of interaction, donations, and whatnot. Even without the company paying her, she would be doing well with just the income from the stream.

But now there was something else to do.

She didn’t mention it to her watchers, but the new drones were built by using Light and Crystal Geomancy at the same time. Crystal for the body and light for the mind and some of the abilities. Her shields were much stronger than at the beginning.

She even had a small belt tool that cast a personal full-body shield around her.

Opening the notifications, she went through the usual skill level ups after crafting something new-ish, then took a look at the important ones.

[Congratulations! You managed to combine two different disciplines of Geomancy!]

[You crafted more than ten Tier 1 drones and one Tier 2 drone.]

[Due to your accomplishment, you receive +1 WIS and +1 DEX!]

[You haven’t selected your crafting specialty yet! Would you like to see a list of available specialties?]

She clicked on the yes button.

Instantly, another window appeared before her with the list.

[Your available specialties are the following:

Drones

Manufacturing

Enchanting

Design

Jewelry

Home appliances

Joke products

…

..

.

Geomancy!]

She read the entire list, and while several from the list tempted her, in the end, there was only one logical choice.

[Congratulations! You selected Geomancy as your crafting speciality!]

[Geomancy Speciality: You wish to focus on Geomancy, master all its secrets, and revel in its intricacy. It is a heavy road you chose, but the final destination should be everything you ever wished for. The effectiveness of Geomancy-related crafting is increased, while the effectiveness of anything else is decreased. Grants you the Critical Crafting skill!]

[Critical Crafting: Level 0/13 (0%) When you craft there is a chance that some of or the entire item is upgraded a quality tier. This chance depends on your LUCK, knowledge, mindset, and the general disposition of the universe. Additionally, this skill only gains experience points when you achieve a critical craft. Grants a base 1% critical crafting chance per skill level.]

She stared a little longer at the skill, trying to see if there was a way to reliably use it, but in the end, she just shrugged and closed the window. She never liked relying on chance.

Hard work was much more reliable…