The metal was milled down into shape. Then formations were carved into the metal. Everything was bathed in the formation medium, then cooled and milled down again so that there was no medium over the rest of the metal. Formation masters checked every rune. Everything was tumbled to remove metal burrs. The finished parts were then slotted into position, assembling a rifle.
“With the new assembly line for machine gun barrels, we can match the production rate of the body assembly line. It’s much faster to make the body of the weapon compared to the barrel,” Taran said.
“The mounted barrel’s extra length will mean greater heat dissipation. With more heat exchanging blocks, the weapon’s fire will be more accurate. Machine guns back on Earth were designed to create a cone of fire. This thing will be more like a buzz saw in a straight line. Here in the Ten Realms, where people can react nearly instantly by putting a ton of rounds on target, not just in their general vicinity, that will be much more effective.”
“Sure would suck to be on the other end of one of these.” Taran shook his head.
“Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to come in and check everything.”
“No worries. I know you’re going stir crazy being here and not out there doing something.”
“Yeah.” Rugrat shrugged.
“Look, the stronger you get, the stronger we all are. You’re close to a mana breakthrough. Take that step; increase your body cultivation. Get stronger. The stronger you are, the safer people are going to be. Work on any projects you have. Train people. At the least, you can do something, and you won’t drive everyone insane.” Taran grinned and scratched his beard.
“All right. I’ll stop bugging you. You got those notes on the magazines and the faults?”
“Yeah, let me know if you find anything.” He pulled out a magazine and a pile of notes.
“More homework.” Rugrat shook his head.
“Something to keep you out of trouble!”
5
To the Next Stage
Erik appeared on the Metal Floor. He got onto Gilly’s back slowly. His entire body ached deep into his bones. He opened his collar. His chest looked like crumbling charcoal. Mercury seeped from the open wounds between his cracked skin.
Metal mana was drawn into his body, making his breath catch. He coughed, his entire body shaking as the first cough pulled him in for more, and he broke out into a coughing fit. He felt a hand on his back, holding him up.
It took a few moments to pull himself together.
“Water?” Gong Jin held out a canteen.
Erik took the water and poured it down his parched throat. He wheezed and passed the canteen back. “Thanks.” Erik sighed.
He closed his eyes, using his Medical Scan to look through his body. The metal mana had sunk into his entire body, through the skin, muscles, and most of his internal organs and bones. He was so close. Once he tempered the last of his internal organs, he’d have to let the tempering pass his neck and reach his brain. Not saying I’m not a little scared about tempering my brain. He was starting to wish there was someone else to be the leading body tempering member of Alva.
Erik pulled himself together.
“Let’s go.” He nudged Gilly forward. The rest of the special team had mounted up and moved around him as they headed for the body tempering facility at the center of the floor, underneath the lightning pool.
Simple Heal gave Erik some relief. Just need more time, rarest resource in the entire universe.
“What’s up, Doc?” Erik said, half-limping into the room.
“You Americans and your cartoons.” Melissa looked up from her desk, her French accent making it somehow regal.
Erik grinned. Her eyebrows pinched together in worry.
Melissa Bouchard had moved her office to the Metal floor for one reason: to watch and record Erik’s progress. She was the head of the Body Cultivation Training Department. Also being from Earth, she had come in like a storm, revolutionizing the body cultivation training systems. She worked with her mana cultivation opposite Hou Jun, a Ten Realms native. With their corroborative work, Alvans’ speed at increasing their mana and body cultivation shot up by fifty percent, and it was no longer a mysterious process. As long as someone could pay for the treatments, they could rapidly increase their cultivation.
“Council Leader Delilah just made it cheaper for stone and iron body level cultivation again,” Melissa said, using Medical Scans on Erik.
“The potions get cheaper every day, and the stronger our people are, the better.”
“Yes, though we have started to run into issues with people who have high cultivation and low levels. Creates an instability. We’re calling it level sickness.”
“Too much, helpful or harmful can be bad.” She pulled out Erik’s file, making notes. “Rugrat has started to form his Liquid Core already?
“He spent so much time on the weapon systems. It was making it hard for him to sit and cultivate his mana for a long time. Now he’s got the free time.” Erik shrugged.
Melissa ran another scan through his body. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a bag of smashed ass. My entire body aches to the core. I can barely call on forty percent of my power. After ten minutes of just conversing on an involved topic, I run out of energy. Lethargic for sure. Though I’ve drilled the metal mana into the majority of my organs.”
Melissa jotted down more notes. “Thankfully, we took this slow. Your organs are operating at less than five percent capacity, but you long ago left behind human bounds. If you didn’t have the stats, a strong body, and resources to help you heal, you’d be wiped out. Hell, if this was anyone else, I would have them stuck on twenty-four-seven bed rest with a stamina drip and healing formations. In fact, that is exactly what I want to do.”
Erik’s fatigue seemed to fade as he looked at Melissa. “I’ve got work to do, people to train. I can make pills and concoctions.”
“Erik, here are your options.” She looked him dead in the eye. “One, you can operate at ten percent or less and slowly temper your body for weeks or months. Two, we set you up in a bed, hook you up to stamina concoctions, healing formations and we blast you through this tempering. We temper right through your organs, completely temper your body, then remove your necklace and allow the changes to spread through your neck and head.”
Erik closed his eyes, taking a few breaths, gathering his strength.
Gilly, who was in her small form, nudged his arm.
Erik opened his eyes and smiled, rubbing her head. His eyes thinned. “All right I’ll do the blast version, but I have a question. If humans can temper their bodies, can beasts?”
“Yes.” Melissa moved her head from side to side. “I have talked to the beast masters that raise the different creatures. Beasts are basically the opposite of humans. Humans are best suited to increase their mana cultivation first and then body cultivation, a distant second. Beasts are better at increasing their body cultivation, tempering with the elements. Then, once they reach a certain level of evolution, like Fred and his people whom you met in the Vuzgal dungeon, they become sentient and able to cultivate other elements and mana.” Melissa shrugged.
“I focus on the human side,” she continued, “but beasts consume the flesh and cores of their opponents. That increases their cultivation and gets them some more experience. Though most beasts only cultivate one kind of body cultivation. They don’t cultivate water, fire, metal, and so on like humans, at least to start. They only cultivate a fire body, or an earth body, or a metal body. Dual body cultivations are rare. When they consume aligned monster cores, ones with the same attributes as their body cultivation, then their cultivation will have a greater jump as compared to neutral monster cores, and much more than monster cores that are of the opposite attribute. Cultivating a single attribute is easier to tend toward. But the capacity required to temper their body is much higher than a human. How much fire it took to temper your body is much lower than it would take George to temper his bo
dy.”
Erik’s eyes were shining.
“I only know the basics, talk to the beast trainers if you want to learn more.”
==========
Quest: Beast Cultivation
==========
One’s power is great, but the power of two united in a single cause is greater than the sum of its parts.
==========
Requirements:
Temper the bones for your beast companion.
==========
Rewards:
Beast will advance in power
==========
“Looks like the Ten Realms agrees with you.” Erik coughed and closed the status screen. “All right, yeah. Let’s do this. I fucking hate being sick.”
“It won’t be an overnight thing. It could take weeks to complete.”
“Better to get it done now than later.” Erik paused, catching his breath. “Did you find out anything about the bloodline part?”
Melissa held her clipboard against her chest as she shook her head.
“Unfortunately, no. We ran into a wall information wise. Through Jia Feng, I have requested more information from the intelligence department. Seems like any information might be in the Seventh Realm and higher.”
“And getting anything from sects in the higher realms is a pain in the ass,” Erik added.
“All of our knowledge past the Body Like Stone stage is based on what we have learned through you and the other people tempering their bodies. You’re the cutting edge for Alva. So we have no idea.” Melissa shrugged her shoulders, moving her clipboard as well.
“Any ideas, theories?”
“Well, these things happen in series. We know more about mana cultivation. With mana cultivation, one goes through a mana rebirth. I think the bloodline is something similar, a point where the body goes through huge changes because of the built-up temperings. Again, this is all conjecture.”
“It makes sense. The Ten Realms systems, while different, follow a certain set of rules. Tempering the foundations is like forming the mana core. Just that with mana cultivation, that is a lot more power. Well, whatever happens, happens. When can you fit me into your schedule?” Erik grinned.
“Luckily for you, I’m free. Give me three hours and I can have everything ready. Though you should let people know you’ll be away for a number of days.”
“They’ll be happy to get the break. I’ll send the messages.”
After getting a message from Erik, Rugrat found himself walking toward the mana cultivation facility.
“Lord Rodriguez,” the lady at the counter greeted him.
“One mana cultivation room. Open it right up to the dungeon core.”
“Uhh.” The lady seemed hesitant, gave a half-shrug, and pulled out a key. “Room one A.”
“Thanks.” Rugrat took the key. He and his protection detail walked through the honeycomb-structured training rooms. People were leaving and entering. No one was hanging around. All the rooms had a red light next to the door showing that they were occupied.
Rugrat reached the room in the center of the training facility.
A deep feeling of relaxation ran through his body as his pores and mana gates opened, drawing in the ambient mana. He had reached the point where he was almost subconsciously circulating his mana all the time.
He used the key and stepped into the training room, leaving his detail in the outer room.
The dungeon might be in chaos, turning into a massive drill digging through the ground. They’d altered the mana-storing formations, so they can only accept power coming in. The power runes on the different floors were thankfully built into the system, so the rest of the dungeon wouldn’t stop running. Still, there were six massive dungeon cores drawing in and purifying mana across six floors, and then shooting it down into the ground. They were burning through a considerable amount of material every second.
Rugrat patted the taped-up skull on his knee. “Looks like that extra mana is good for you. Your carvings are coming in faster. Now, I can’t let Erik get ahead of me. I’ve been holding back too much. I won’t leave until I reach the liquid core.”
His tour of Alva had made him realize everything was in capable hands. The only thing he had to do was classes in a week’s time.
Rugrat took the health monitoring formation from the wall and stuck it to his chest, swiping a pillow to the ground, and pulled out a box of different pills and concoctions.
He parked his ass on the pillow and pulled his legs together to cross them.
“All right, let’s see what you’ve got.” He used mana manipulation to create a mana hand and reached out to pull the lever on the wall. Formations pulled into place, diverting pure mana from the dungeon core into the room.
Rugrat grunted. It was like he had turned on a waterfall that was shooting at him from every direction. “Hah! Nice!”
He released his control over his aura. His mana domain stretched around the room, hemmed in by the surrounding mana. It extended about a foot from his body.
Using his domain, he compressed the mana and drew it into his mana gates. Fifteen cyclones of mana appeared around his body. White circles appeared under his skin, shining as the cyclones drove through the center of the circles.
The compressed mana fought against his mana veins, creating a turbulent atmosphere like there were raging rapids inside Rugrat’s body.
He circulated the mana, compressing and drawing it further. The different streams of mana combined, passing through larger mana veins, illuminating him from the inside.
Rugrat removed anything other than cultivation from his mind, becoming solely focused on what was happening within his body.
The mana traveling through his veins reached Rugrat’s core. Like a black hole, it drank in the mana. Seconds passed as drops started to appear around the edges of his mana core.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the drops from the edges of his core released from the wall and gathered in the middle, adding to the liquid sphere resting there.
Rugrat was covered in sweat, but his face was pulled back in a chilling grin.
With a laugh, Rugrat pulled down on the lever more. The mana density in the room doubled again. Rugrat’s back bent with a grunt. His nose flared as he pushed against the new pressure on his body. He sat back upright, drawing in more mana.
On his hip, the once yellowed skull was rapidly turning pearl white, without the slightest blemish. Blue and golden runes appeared on the pearl-white bone. The blue and gold runes seemed to shift and move in their carved lines as if they were liquid gold and the most brilliant blue waters.
It had taken four hours for Erik to get everything cleared. At the same time, medics were called in from across the Ten Realms to assist.
He missed Gilly, but she was off training with her elements.
A close protection detail was set up outside of Erik’s room, while Roska’s Special Team Two had switched with Gong Jin’s team to take over protecting Erik. Each of the lords had five special team members with them as guards at all times.
Erik walked in from a side room wearing a robe and boxers, showing his withered and frail body. Several tempering nails had been driven into his body: two on each of his upper arms, others on his legs, and four into his stomach. Healing formations adhered to his skin were glowing constantly.
He was gaunt. The necklace around Erik’s neck protected the healthy skin and appearance of his head.
“Jen, aren’t you supposed to be in King’s Hill?”
“Well, as the Head of Health Studies, I should get to know more about body tempering, right?” Jen said.
“Doesn’t look the most appealing.” Erik smiled weakly as he walked to the bed in the middle of the room.
“I’ve seen worse.” Jen shrugged.
“Not the young impressionable lady running around with notes falling all over the place and studying everywhere she can find room anymore.” Erik remembered the first time he had met Jen, filled with her questions.
Melissa finished talking to another healer and walked over. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” Erik laid down on the bed, grimacing as his broken skin pressed against the bedsheets.
Medics moved in. They used Iodine Touch, numbing him and cleaning the area, as they used their fingers to place IO bands. The bands adhered to the skin and the drill head dug through the skin, muscle, and into the bone.
The caps on the back of the drilled-in needles were connected to drip lines.
Sensing bands were put on Erik’s right arm.
“These are new formations. They will detect your overall stamina and health,” Jen explained, pointing to what looked like an EKG machine. It showed two bars: red for health and green for stamina. The red was at around seventy percent and the green around thirty percent.
The IV lines hung from surrounding stands as a ring of light shone down on Erik. All around the bed, amplification formations were activated. Medics stepped up on the platforms.
“Increase stamina flow,” Jen called out as she cleaned her hands and gowned up.
Energy coursed through his body and he sighed, more alert than he’d felt in days.
The bar on the screen reached fifty percent as Jen once again stepped near the bed.
“Connect the spikes.”
She and the other medics took out mana channeling lines and hooked them onto the end of the metal attribute spikes, trying to be as gentle as possible.
“Okay, Erik, this is the part when you take a nap,” Jen said.
“See you in a bit.” Erik smiled.
An alchemist put an oxygen mask on Erik’s face.
“Breathe deep and count down from ten.”
“Ten.” Erik breathed in deeply twice, getting to six as he blinked twice. He closed his eyelids for longer. As he tried to count down, his head was in a swamp.
Seventh Realm Part 1: A LitRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 8) Page 5
