Too Stubborn to Die

The goblins’ eyes widened as they stared at the chunk of mysterious rock.

“What is this?”

“Aether rock,” Aaron said. “It’s why I came here. I was kind of hoping to find somebody who could work with it.”

“Don’t touch it, Mork!”

“Whaddya scared of? It ain’t poisonous!” Gork said, prodding the rock. “But I also ain’t ever seen nothing like it. Mythical metal, too. Impressive.”

“Aye, tis an odd rock. Oi, wait a moment! I got an idea!” Mork hurried out into the back room and returned with a strange instrument that he waved over the rock. It immediately started beeping, and his expression widened. “Gork, it’s just like thems armor we took from the undead. Well, not quite. This is a strange reading.”

“Let me see that thing!” Gork said, yanking the device out of Mork’s hands. “Wow, you’re right.”

“Oh, right,” Aaron nodded as he realized where they were going with this. “I take it you’re talking about Darius’ undead? You’re half right. This rock is filled with aether. Although it isn’t the same kind of corrupted energy. I think you’ll find that this doesn’t make you feel weak or sick.”

“No side effects?”

“Hold that thought!” Gork said. “Humy, come into the workshop. Wes got things to show you.”

Aaron followed the two brothers back, and they showed him various sets of armor on display.

“What’s all this?”

“Armor. Some we made, others junk collected from the undead. We’s is trying to make something for the Alliance troops. By studying the undead armor, we’s want to make something to keep the corruption out. Them’s council folk paid us to make ‘em.”

“Yep! But Gork here's too dumb to figure it out!” Mork said.

“So, these ones are looted from the undead, huh?” Aaron walked up to a piece of armor, placed his hand on it, and cleansed the corruption. “Dammit. I can cleanse them easily enough, but now the aether is gone,” he groaned.

“Th-that was amazing! What the?” Gork rushed over. “It’s gone! All of it! Hmm, interesting,” he muttered, picking his nose. “The readings are different too, now. Make if we just…”

“That actually helped?” Aaron asked. “Oh, well, I can do it again.” Aaron moved over to the next armor set, and cleansed it too.

Before he was even finished, Gork had rushed over and was already waving his contraption around, umming and ahhing as it beeped. “More, more! This is good data.”

“Alright, if you say so.”

Aaron cleansed several more as Gork checked readings and scribbled notes with the handwriting of a blind child. “That’s it. Humy is okay. That’s enough. These are the readings we need! Perfect. I can work with this. I already have a bunch of ideas. Just need to parse through this data.”

“Glad I could help. Now, what about my aether rock? Think you could help me?”

“Huh? The rock, right! Oh yeah. Not a worry. We’ll make you whatever you want. For a fee.”

“Wait!” Mork said. “But on condition! You’s gotta help us do whatever you did to this armor again if we’s need it. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah!” Gork nodded. “We’s might need more data later.”

“Not a problem. If you need more examples, I’ll cleanse more corrupted aether,” Aaron said. “As for my rock…”

“Let’s get the details”

Aaron explained that he wanted armor, precisely something less revealing than what he currently had, emphasising no short shorts.

They agreed to his request. And for a couple of rather uncouth goblins, their setup was rather sophisticated. They had a local lawyer specialised in System contracts on retainer. In less than an hour, he came over and had them sign one that stated the goblins were contractually bound to complete Aaron’s requested project. Failure to do so would incur costs, and knowing and intentional theft of the aether rock would enslave them to Aaron.

“Enlsave? That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?” Aaron said.

“No, no, no,” the lawyer shook his head. “With all the clauses I wrote into this thing, it’s essentially impossible for that to happen unless these two intentionally steal your rock. Which they have no intention of doing.”

“Alright, that makes sense. I suppose,” Aaron said, and signed the contract. He didn’t really want a couple of argumentative goblin slaves, but supposed the threat of slavery should keep his treasure safe.

The goblin brothers were more preoccupied with the recently cleansed undead armor, and were going over their readings and checking countless things back and forth. When Aaron finished up with the lawyer, Gork came, wandering back from a quick experiment, wiping gunk from his hands onto his clothing. “You’s gave us lots to do. It ain’t gonna be easy to do this aether rock justice. But we’s gonna make it work one way or another. Thanks to the cleansing you did, you’ve saved us a bunch of time. But it’ll take a little while to figure this metal out. Wes gotta test a few things out first.”

“Not a problem,” Aaron said. “Also, I was also hoping to upgrade my gauntlets.”

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“Let me’s take a look at that!” Mork said. “Hmm, these are fine craftsmanship. Very good indeed. But you’ve certainly outgrown them,” he said, eyeing the gauntlets.

“Yeah, I’ve had them for a while now.”

“Okay, since all you’s did, I do this one for free. Take them off,” Mork snapped his fingers. “It takes a few weeks. I need to test a few things out. And we’s need you to fill up our mana core with your mana and aether. With that, we’s can adjust it for your power. Make sure you’s mana anchors be working all good like with the gauntlets.”

Aaron followed the goblins out the back, where they led him to a massive rock. It was dormant, completely drained of mana, but when he pressed his hand against it, it sucked in his mana hungrily. He had to make a few adjustments to get it to store aether, too. But after a few minutes of tinkering, it seemed to work well enough.

It sounded like the work would take a while. But he wanted to talk with Ernest about the mana anchors anyway, and wasn’t in a rush to confront Darius, so living without the gauntlets wasn’t a big deal.

“Great! So much mana. And this aether. Heheh,” Gork said, grinning wildly. “This gonna help a lot!”

“Shut up, Gork! This was my idea. That should do it, though. Stay in touch. We’s might need more. Now, give us a while. We’s don’t want to be rushing and ruining Mythical resources.”

“Fair enough. Thanks for everything,” Aaron said, waving as he left.

The shop assistant had a relay stone, and they bound it to Aaron’s. “With this, Mork and Gork will be able to contact you.”

“Sick,” Aaron said.

The World Alliance really felt like it was living in the twenty-first century compared to Dober.

With an armorsmith and weaponsmith procured, Aaron made his way back to the gunsmith.

Ernest was outside puffing his cigar and leaning over a railing.

“How’s it all going, mate? Got yourself a new gun?”

“Eh, alright. He’s out back working on something special, apparently. We’ll see, though. I’ve got a lot of firepower to blast through those guns. And every time he comes up with a new model, I find a way to destroy it.”

“About that,” Aaron said. “You are putting a lot of power into those bullets. I’m pretty eager to learn more. You wanna sit down and talk about those mana anchors? I’d really love to get some insights.”

“I don’t see why not. Come, I’ll show you,” Ernest said, pulling out a revolver and spinning the clip. Ernest took out a bullet and held it in his open palm. “You sense it? The mana?”

Aaron nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

“This is a little different to what you're used to, no doubt. We generally turn mana into a Skill, or raw power once it leaves our bodies. But with imbued mana anchors, we encapsulate it into something else, instead of expelling the mana. Here, close your eyes. You need to envision drawing your mana out at your anchors, but without expelling it. Then, we store it, but you’ll need something to store it in,” Ernest explained.

As he spoke, the cowboy replicated the practice, slowly drawing mana out so that Aaron could sense what he was doing, and storing his mana into a bullet.

“See. Pick something you’re familiar with. It’ll help, probably.”

Ernest went on to explain that anything could be imbued with mana.

Aaron decided to use a steak from his storage. Food was near and dear to his heart, and it had been cooked by his hands and, in a sense, already imbued with his mana. He didn’t know if that would help, but it couldn’t hurt, right?

As Aaron focused, he sat down and meditated, listening and sensing Ernest’s instructions, using [ Gorgon’s Soul Vortex ] to better read the fluctuations of mana pouring out from Ernest.

“I see. Fascinating,” Aaron said as he tried to mimic the practice, gradually drawing mana out from his core, circulating it, and holding it in place as he tried to imbue his steak with the mana.

It was no easy task, though. Perhaps because it didn’t come as naturally to him. He was a melee combatant, after all, and a hand-to-hand combatant at that.

Imbuing seemed steered toward ranged types, essentially making it the complete opposite of what Aaron was naturally drawn to, and so despite all of his talent, he meditated for hours out front of the gunsmith as Ernest instructed and provided examples.

“You’re getting close,” Ernest said. “Just like that. Keep going. Push yourself. Remain focused. Don’t let it crack.”

Aaron’s brow creased as he tried to harden a mana shell around the steak with external mana to try and stop it from escaping the meat, and focused desperately on keeping it from dissipating and failing his attempt. As he did this, he poured more and more mana into it, as if tempering the mana casing that would keep the mana within the steak, but like water seeping through the cracks of one’s fingers, it was no easy task.

His style was incredibly wasteful, and soon Aaron was forced to eat and mend his soul as he increased the power of his core. Mana radiated from him, and he started to convert other energy sources and draw in ambient aether to further fuel his clumsy attempts at creating the mana-infused steak.

“You can have a break, you know?” Ernest said, voice wavering slightly. “Take your time. This clearly isn’t natural for you.”

But Aaron didn’t listen, even as a crowd of nervous onlookers began to fill the streets around him.

Instead, he just pushed his core harder, and soon arcs of mana were lashing out around him, streaming across the ground as his eyes turned white, and absurd amounts of mana were wasted, expelled into the atmosphere as he threw one layer after another onto the stake in a desperate attempt to stop the mana from leaking.

Everything about what he was doing felt wrong. This mana anchor was almost completely alien to his style. But he didn’t give up. And started to pull insights from his [ Bombardier Fist ] Skill, using the mana makeup of the Skill to guide him in storing and keeping the mana within the steak.

This helped. But he was still a cat trying to swim, and it was all kinds of wrong. Even a melee combatant that relied on weapons would likely be naturally more inclined to use imbued anchors, and so it took a goliathan effort to push himself toward his goal.

But if Aaron was one thing, it was stubborn. And he refused to give up, pressing forth even as his soul cracked under the pressure.

You have gained insight into a possible upgrade path for Mana Anchors. Current discovered upgrade paths:

Streamlined Mana Anchors (10%)

Partitioned Mana Anchors (45%)

Reverse Mana Anchors (5%)

Elemental Shift (Void) (10%)

Expanded Mana Anchors (5%)

Imbuing Mana Anchors (5%)

“You did it. You actually did it,” Ernest said as the steak visibly shook as unstable mana dangerously threatened to escape. And a second later, it did just that, and beautifully cooked meat exploded across the street. “Extremely clumsily, but you did it. And you didn’t even take a break,” he sighed and shook his head.

“Not bad, huh?” Aaron said.

“You have a lot of work to do,” Ernest groaned. “A lot of work.”

However, even as Ernest spoke, there was something else hidden in his hardened expression.

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