SSS-Rank Engineer: Only I Can Create Legendary Weapons

━━━━━━━━━ ✦ Optional Quests ✦ ━━━━━━━━━

– Complete the Second Version of the Spellcore (Given by Aether): Your inventions continue to impress the god of possibilities. He humbly requests that your next version of the Spellcore improves on its conductivity to avoid burning the Aetherite conductor. Rewards: One Rank 4 customizable reward, twenty additional stat points.

– Find the Forgotten Temple (Given by Nyx): Find the forgotten Temple of Gaia, and claim her inheritance. Not much to say here, but I'll speak directly. This will determine whether you return to Dema in ruin or not. Rewards: One Rank 5 customizable reward, fifty additional stat points.

– Use the curse mark (Given by Aether): Your newest reward will need to be used soon. Use the curse mark on an enemy. Rewards: One Rank 3 customizable reward, ten additional stat points.

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As Percy ate, his mind turned over Nyx's quest. Gaia was one of the primal elements of reality. She was quite literally the planet itself, mother of all life and gods.

Why would such a powerful being's temple be forgotten? And what did the Basker family have to do with it?

Once they were done eating Percy and Flynn ran back upstairs into the attic. He grabbed the diary she'd been reading and flipped through the pages slowly.

It was the same horrific abuse he'd seen in the others, the only difference here being that this kid seemed to have been a twin—Ramona Basker and her brother Philip.

There was a single entry that said her brother had been swallowed by Gaia. He didn't understand what this meant but kept reading.

After that, Ramona claimed to see her brother's spirit in the shadows and told her family. This led to a terrible beating and her being locked in her room for a week. The diary entries continued until one day…

"That's all," he murmured in disbelief.

"A splash of ink on the page," Flynn said at his side. "That was the last thing she put in the diary. Then they threw it up here."

"Gaia… does that name sound in any way familiar? Like an old legend or god?"

Flynn tilted her head, amber eyes bright with confusion.

"No, not really. I know legends, but gods are an ancient practice, the worship of spirits above Rank 4. And I haven't heard of any stories about Gaia."

It was too strange to brush off. At first he thought maybe there weren't any gods here like the original twelve, but now… maybe they'd been erased, or never known.

The only mention of a god he'd ever found was tied to the royal family of the Crona Kingdom—the Hestia family. And before that, the Heracles Empire.

Heracles had later become a god in myths back on Earth, but here he was just a hero who founded an empire. An empire whose history was almost completely erased by some cataclysm.

Something was happening. He wasn't sure what, but he had the feeling more than just the Heracles Empire had been erased. Maybe their culture had gone with them too.

He sighed, leaning against the wall.

"Flynn, there's something in this house. I'm sure of it. You have to convince your dad it's not safe."

She sat up, curious.

"How can you be sure? I was there with you when you cast your spell. I swear I didn't see anything."

He grew silent, then began checking through boxes for any scrap of information. Flynn sighed and followed, plopping down on the hardwood floor with a picture book.

A few minutes later he found something that made him pause.

"This… Therianite. And that's Minstrel and Coana."

Flynn walked over, kneeling beside him.

"What does all that mean?"

"These are materials with strong earth connections in Hermetics," he murmured. "Therianite's used to draw lines connecting circles. Minstrel and Coana are leaves, you burn them to create an environment for Earth spirits."

"Why's that strange? Lots of people dabble in Hermetics these days. Healing circles, finding lost things, simple stuff."

Percy shook his head, eyes scanning the attic with tired suspicion.

"These three are often used together by Theurgists. That's the most restricted branch of Hermeticism. They summon and bargain with powerful spirits."

Flynn's eyes went wide, excitement and dread tangled in her chest.

"We have to tell my parents. The Baskers must have summoned something into the house and it hasn't left yet. We need a Spiritmancer with better perception."

"What about your dad?" Percy asked casually.

"He's not very spiritually sensitive. I think, I don't really know. But he once said he can't fight Evil spirits."

Percy sighed, looking back toward the attic. Another idea struck him.

"You go. Tell your parents. I'll keep looking for clues."

Flynn barely let him finish before she was down the ladder, already shouting for her dad.

Percy turned back to the room, trying to envision it as a single great circle. There was a simple way to hide things from people using Hermetics: [Veil of Secrecy].

Draw a circle, weave patterns of light and dreams with the right materials, then bind the edges with powerful names of spirits,

He stepped forward, imagining the circle on the floor. The tap, the point where it drew spirit energy from the earth, would be—

He knelt suddenly and slammed an enhanced punch into the hardwood. BANG!

"Here."

Looking into the hole, he found nothing.

"Well, that's embarrassing. That was supposed to be my big moment. Was I mistaken?"

Instead of admitting it, Percy doubled down, reimagined the circle, and smashed another hole.

"Finally. I was right this time."

A nexus of swirling lines met at a circular hole under the floorboards, stretching down into the earth.

"I could try to dig out the focus objects, but disrupting them could make things worse. So instead, let's cut the power supply."

He summoned salt from his storage and poured it into the hole. Just like that, the flow of spirit energy dried up.

Things shimmered into existence like mist rising in the air—books, totem poles, mummified animal parts.

"They've been rather naughty, haven't they?" he chuckled, walking toward a stack of books.

Then he froze, eyes locked on the floor, where his shadows sat. Two of them.

He stepped back and the second shadow lagged behind.

"You have to be fucking kidding me."

The shadow realized it had been caught. It drifted away, slowly, then began to stretch—taller, wider—until it covered the roof itself, looming down over him.