Chapter 29 - Risk Vs Reward
The large elemental was sitting on the ground like a small child staring at the metal box that was the storage room. It had eaten all of the stone and metal veins that surrounded it, but it couldn't eat the box. This frustrated it to no end, it's intelligence was like that of a toddler and being unable to take what it wanted had caused quite a few tantrums. The worst part was everytime it got close the red light would shine and then it made "The noise". Elementals didn't hear like humans did, they felt the vibrations of sound with their whole body, and the noise of the red light was the most painful sound the creature had ever felt.
The creature stared at the room as Tect snuck up behind it. The creature was much taller than tect so his plan was to get right behind it, jump over its back and use his mana charged fist to shatter its head. He was within five feet of the creature when the whole plan went up in smoke.
A lesser elemental had finally gained enough mana to go to the sixth floor and was sneaking through the humanoid elemental's territory when it spotted Tect. It couldn't see the hulking humanoid from its location and assumed that if Tect was alive, that it must not be here. It roared and began to charge. However, as soon as it did that the humanoid elemental raised its head.
Luckily for Tect he was so much smaller than an elemental that the stone giant didn't even notice him. It charged for the intruding elemental and tackled it just as it realized what mistake it had made.
Tect wasted no time and ran for the door to the storage room. Just as he reached the door the lesser elemental turned to dust. The red light flashed scanning Tect. The humanoid elemental saw the light and roared, then began to charge towards Tect. With a hiss the door slid open and Tect jumped inside, the door closing behind him. Within a second of the door closing the whole room was slammed by the elemental and shifted a good 6 inches. All of the storage chest had toppled to the ground long ago so none fell on Tect, but he fell on them pretty hard leaving many bruises and a few cuts and scrapes.
" GOD DAMMIT! That hurt like hell, one of these damned boxes hit my elbow just right." Tect flexed his sore elbow a few times to let the pain out, truly this was the least funny of bones. The Storage room was in a horrible state. Chests were lying everywhere, and they seemed to have no labels, only the shelving had been labeled.
"It's going to take a long time to check all of these boxes, Do you know what all they stored in here?"
Azulak was quick to answer, "Not a clue. I was incharge of security, not mining. I only know about the storage rooms because we had to have plans in place for various mining accidents. These storage rooms were safe locations for miners to gather during fires or cave-ins, so security was given details of them but they were still just normal storage so I imagine there are basic emergency supplies, spare parts, and mining tools. Just dig in, we have all the time in the world with that behemoth outside."
As if on queue a beep sounded from the door followed by a high pitched alarm, and the roars of the elemental.
After the alarm quit the beast calmed down and Tect began his search. The first few chests he checked had power crystals in them. Tect combined all of the crystals into one chest and placed them in his spatial bag. After that it was a crap shoot, there were old mining tools, some broken glass bottles, and at one point rolls of white paper that fell apart as soon as he touched them. It took two hours before Tect was able to find anything good. It started slowly but he found a box with 5 iron elemental cores, and one with a silvery core he couldn't identify. Eventually he found the first part he needed, the small silver box called a solenoid. It was packed away in a grease covered paper wrapping, six others just like it were in another box, Tect took all 7, just to be safe. The next box was a huge surprise for tect, it was a large box about double the size of the others, inside was a paper manual and a silver device that looked like a huge spyglass with a handle.
Tect looked at the manual, "It says it's a T220 Mana Concentration Mining Laser. What does that mean?"
Joy flowed from Tect's ring, "This is amazing, I can't wait till you see what this is going to do to the elemental outside. Your people had many amazing inventions and this is going to give you an idea of what you can look forward to in the future."
"Ok well I will set this by the door for now." Tect Moved the box and continued his search. It didn't take long to find the 2 sprockets and the beveled gear he needed, still he continued opening the chests. He found an additional 2 boxes of various ores, 3 bottles of grease, 2 red potion bottles and one chest that he couldn't open because it was locked. His spatial bag was filled to the max, and it was time to leave.
" Ok Azulak, how are we going to use this laser thingie to take care of the elemental outside?
"Clear a space about 6 feet from the door to stand, then open your mind and I'll show you how to use it."
Tect cleared off all the chest in that area, he never reshelved them in fear of the elemental slamming the door and burying him. Once that was done Azulak transferred a memory to him of a goblin presenting the device, the memory cut off right when it was to be activated.
"Stingy old lizard. Why didn't you let me see it activate?"
"Firstly, I am no lizard, that's blatant racism. Secondly, I want to see your honest reaction when you activate it."
Tect rolled his eyes, but whatever, he took a power crystal from his storage and loaded it into the device. A series of lights lit up along the side of the foregrip and a pleasant humming sound came from it.
"Ok, point it at the door and get ready to pull the trigger. When you're ready, say 'Open the storage room door'."
Tect knelt on one knee and aimed down the sights just like the goblin from the memory, "Open storage room door." There was a hiss and the door slowly slid open.
The elemental was infuriated, the little green rat was able to enter the room. He even tried to follow when the pain noise came again. Life wasn't fair. Thankfully a few hours later he heard the hiss and the door slid open, he ran forward grabbing the sides of the door frame to hold it open and looked through the opening.
When Tect saw the elemental's head he pulled the trigger. A red beam of light shot out of the end of the barrel and Tect was momentarily blinded. When he could see again he looked towards the doorway only to see that the elemental's head had a massive hole in it that leaked molten rock. It was frozen in place like it was shocked but in reality it was dead, the mana in its body was slowly being drawn back into its core. Tect looked at the device in his hands and unfortunately the barrel was destroyed, he was probably lucky to get this one shot. Still he stored it away, maybe someone would be able to replicate it someday.
Tect stepped forward and touched the elemental, as soon as he did it crumbled. Tect sorted through the rubble and finally found a very large core. It was a beautiful silvery blue with black cubes embedded into it. Tect was excited to use this core for his sword, surely the power boost would be amazing. And with that thought Tect ran back to the second floor to start the repairs on the Auto Forge.
Tect was very good with basic mechanical contraptions but it still took a couple of days to do all the repairs and oil the machine using the materials from the storage room, but he was finally ready to begin working on his sword and he even had enough cores to make his helmet and both gauntlets.
"Ok, step to the back and load a few power crystals and all of the cores you have. Even if they are not metal the machine can use them. Once they are loaded the interface should activate."
Tect loaded all of the cores and half of the remaining power crystals.
The machine immediately came to life, and suddenly liquid metal flowed from it forming an inclined tablet. Words etched themselves onto the metal tablet and Tect began to read.
System boot successful
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Energy capacity full
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Addition energy units Detected in storage approximate Value 7500 units
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Total Energy available to user 8000 Units
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Various Elemental Crystals Detected, Analyzing Composition
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No ores Detected Advise addition of ores for more economical production, Addition of ores is not necessary for production
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Welcome New User, Scanning New User.
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New User Registered as Administrator Tect, Unlocking Administrative Privlages.
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Menu.
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Crafting
Inventory
Settings
Power Options
"This is great its working perfectly. So you want to make a long sword first, so select Crafting, Weapons, Swords, and finally long swords."
Tect did as he was told and the menu change
Menu.
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Sculpt Mode
Prefab
Mass production options
"You worked at a smithy so i think you should use sculpt mode, that way you can choose how your sword will look."
"Ok, that sounds pretty fun actually."
Tect chose sculpt mode and the tablet changed. Above the tablet a series of bars appeared labeled, Sharpness, Durability, and Magical Capacity. The tablet itself turned into a generic long sword.
"Ok now you can touch the sword and use your mana to sculpt it. When you finish you can adjust the sliders above to adjust the characteristic of your sword, then we can choose the materials next."
Tect sculpted for 4 hours just on the blade, the cross guard and grip each took 2. When he was done he had a longsword with double fullers almost 4 fingers wide. The crossguard was a stylized dragon's head, the grip was perfectly shaped so he could grip it from any angle, and the pommel was a simple sphere.
Now Tect began to use the sliders, he quickly noticed that the more sharpness he added the less durability he had and vice versa. When he added magic capacity he lost both. In the end he decided to make a very balanced sword and tried to keep the sliders as even as possible.
"For a first sword balance is the best choice, as you master your mana control you'll lean more towards durability and magic capacity, still this is a great sword to last you for years. Now press the arrow beside the sliders."
Tect pressed the arrow. Three options appeared, Maximum Quality, Maximum speed, custom settings.
"Ok so click Maximum Quality the autoforge will use the available materials to produce the best blade."
Tect pressed the button and the machine roared to life. Before the gentle spin of gears was like the purr of a kitten, now the Auto Forge Roared like a dragon.
* Estimated time to completion 2 Days 11 hours 55min Power use 3570/8000
"Wow, this is going to take a while. I guess we can go back to camp and train for a few days."
"Yes, that would be best. It would be good if you could build a few practice dummies to train with your new sword too. You do not want to attack an elemental until you have mastered imbuing your sword with mana."
Tect and Azulak left the mine and headed back to camp.