Serum

Dirk was surprised as Exos so directly decided to give him passing marks. He had made several pieces to test Dirk’s skill, but after just one he seemed satisfied. In fact, what he made wasn’t even the entire test piece for Geode, just one of six parts. 

Dirk’s brow raised as he glanced back toward the dwarf.

“Are you sure?”

“I am. Your skill is more than enough. In fact, I’ve met forgemasters at the Haven who have created Tier 6 crafts that have lesser skill than you.”

“Really? That seems unlikely.”

“Please, you overestimate how shameless dwarves can be. There are many who simply brute force the power of their craft up to a high level by simply stuffing it with overloaded mana. So while it would technically be a Grade 6 craft, in terms of skill it wouldn’t even match up to a decent Grade 5. But I have a good eye for skill, and I can tell that you’re easily at a Grade 6 standard. And that’s without a proper technique. Your basics seem to be perfect though, making up for that fact.”

Exos dolled out praise, making Dirk smile. He had never really gotten any compliments for his work outside of Tobasden who trained him. The only other thing that had made a big impression was his armor, but that never came out often since it was a part of Obsidius. 

Exos continued. 

“You seem especially good at precise alterations, which will be crucial for the things I have in mind. Stuffing more power into a singular Processor is demanding that I go smaller, so I need hardware that can follow.”

“I’ll expect that kind of work then.”

“Yes. My new codified enchanting methods are evolving so fast that I can barely keep up with the ever expanding possibilities. There’s simply too much to discover and study. When I build one thing utilizing my best knowledge, I find that my limits have already been exceeded by the time it is finished, leading to a cycle of constant upgrades and scrapping for something better. But it’s all so exciting that I can barely stop to eat.”

Exos scratched his head, and upon further observation, Dirk did indeed notice that Exos looked far more gaunt than he did in the past. 

He might conclude that Exos had been under a lot of pressure, but the reality was quite the opposite. He was simply so engrossed in his work that he forsook his health for more time to experiment. 

It was only unfortunate that he wasn’t a body refiner, otherwise he would have much more fuel to work. Dirk couldn't imagine what he could do if that were the case. 

Suddenly, Exos shook his head. 

“But enough about that. Since I’ve decided that your skills are my saving grace, we can get straight into the real work. Come take a look at my latest designs. If possible, I would like to begin work soon. There are several systems on the Sky King that need my input in order to prevent future maintenance issues. Not only that, but Pandora has tasked me with what is essentially weaponizing my Processors. They’ll help us during our time in enemy territory.”

With those words, Exos dragged Dirk off into a world of complex engineering. 

The designs he had in mind were a dozen times more complex than the test piece he had Dirk make. It was clear that precision was the main issue, and these Processors did indeed demand high levels of miniaturization. 

If Exos was heading down the path that Earth did, then this would only get worse. Dirk realized that even if his skills could keep up, he simply wouldn’t have the tools necessary to create what Exos would want him to in the future. At some point, things just became too small for humans to interact with. 

Shockingly though, Exos already knew this and designed a special set of forging tools that they would need to build and use for the Processors. He also started designing housing units that could circumvent the miniaturization issues. Those housing units would have to be built by Dirk, but they would be universal in that Exos could enchant the processor inside however he wished without needing to adapt the hardware. 

Of course, universal Processing units were a bit beyond him at the moment, but the fact that he had thought of all these issues and begun preparing for it left Dirk in awe. 

Dirk was able to keep up, at least conceptually, with everything Exos showed him. And the process of going through everything took around 3 hours, after which Dirk became increasingly bored as Exos talked about more of the engineering instead of anything he could follow. 

Eventually he managed to slip away. Still, he had to promise to be back the next day. Exos was even more eager than him to begin their projects. 

Not that Dirk complained. Exos had already proven to be an extremely valuable asset to their team. That value would only grow with time and opportunity, further unleashed by Dirk’s support. 

And Dirk would be able to receive the fruits of Exos’ labor in multiple ways. They had already talked about crafting armor, and many of the enchantments Exos spoke of made Dirk excited. 

There was much to anticipate, but crafting was only one of Dirk’s focuses. 

Since they had a week, Dirk intended to squeeze out as much power as he could during that time. 

His main order of business, besides his martial arts, was developing spells for his new Stigma. 

Spyte now had four forms: a tattoo, a cat, a pistol, and now a railgun.

The railgun was capable of great devastation, that much was certain. But Dirk needed to develop spells that made best use of its abilities. 

Unlike the pistol, the railgun wasn’t limited in its conductivity. Where the pistol could only fire a single circle spell, the railgun could handle any number of spell circles. This meant there was no limit in complexity and by extension, no limit in the power of each shot. 

Unfortunately, Dirk didn’t know much about large scale spells. But fortunately, he knew someone who did. In fact, that was all she seemed to ever cast. 

Pandora rarely used magic, and that was because she rarely entered battle. Dirk had only seen her cast a few offensive spells, and two of them were massively powerful. 

The first was the blood ice needle that killed the Turtle General at the ruined city. The second was the huge fogging spell she cast when trying to steal the Key Artifact of Earth. 

That fogging spell had been more than a visible obstruction. It had been a magic obstruction that hampered mana senses and stifled hostile spells. And it covered the entire battlefield, something that couldn't be done casually. 

Of all the times she cast spells, Dirk saw little in the way of personal spells. His mother, on the other hand, had amazing personal spells. It was why she was able to help him develop pistol spells. 

Now, Dirk sought Pandora’s help for the large spells. 

Of course, she was more than happy to help, especially after the gift he gave her. She seemed to be in a constant good mood after that, so she didn’t hesitate to spill her knowledge. 

The Earth element was their only overlapping attribute, so that’s where she was able to provide the most help. Plus, she knew exactly how the railgun should be used, so their directions were identical. 

At first, they started with the basics. 

The complexity of a spell was dictated by how many spell circles comprised it. While a single spell circle could have varying levels of depth, it was generally restrictive and limited in output. That was because a single spell circle could only contain so much runic information. 

Adding more mana was the most direct way of adding more information. Adding more directions to the spell, such as forming fire into a fire lance or forming metal into an arrow required more instructions. Because of this, you had to balance a spell’s complexity with its power output. 

That is, until you added more circles. 

Adding another circle could multiply the maximum level of runic information allowed. This meant more power and more instructions. Not only that, but special configurations of spell circles could increase the size limit by magnitudes. 

Of course, it took great knowledge to utilize these kinds of spells. The biggest spells Dirk had ever seen came from the Key Artifact during its battle with Umangot where it created a 21 circle spell. Back then, to defend against that spell, Umangot had only utilized a 16 circle spell. 

With each spell circle came an exponential amount of information to process. It wasn’t as simple as stuffing more power into it. More information begets more information, no matter the form. So the amount of spell circles couldn’t increase without limit. 

Because of that, there was an efficiency issue. But that was specific to every spell, so such things could only be worried about after developing a working spell. 

All these things meant that large spells couldn’t be easily created. For normal mages, creating a 10 circle spell could take months if not years. Anything more complex couldn’t be created at all unless you stood at the peaks of power. 

There was a reason that age was almost synonymous with greater power. For a mage, accumulation was extremely important. More knowledge almost always directly resulted in more power. 

Of course, Dirk and Pandora didn’t have that time, nor did they seem to care about the complexities of making a spell. 

After a day of working together, they had already created a rudimentary 7 circle spell. It was rather simple, a Metal spell that launched a projectile at supersonic speeds. 

This projectile was much more massive than a bullet, resulting in an obscene amount of kinetic energy being put behind it. As for the targeting solutions, they would be left entirely up to Dirk. The spell only had to fire it forward, but of course, doing such a thing wasn’t so simple. 

There were many factors that could deviate a projectile's trajectory, even with magic. Simple mana turbulence could brush it a mere millimeter in another direction and cause a missed shot. 

For this, they had to make many adjustments. Those things came during their next day of work. 

And with those adjustments came more issues. Like in programming, any small edit could create an entire list of bugs. Spells seemed to be annoyingly brittle creations, but with enough trial and error, those things could be ironed out, unlike programming bugs. Those were eternal.

Like that, by the third day, they had created the first railgun spell. 

Nothing more than a spell that launched a metal projectile, but it carried more power than any of Dirk’s magical attacks thus far. Just a single shot of this 7 circle spell would consume a whopping 60% of his mana. Not only that, but under normal circumstances, it would take around 8 seconds to build this spell and fire it.

However, with Spyte’s ability to store perfect spell constructions not unlike Pandora’s Book of Life, that time was cut down to nothing. 

But this wasn't so much due to Spyte as it was Dirk’s Mana Body. This Trait allowed him to move his mana with perfect precision and control, and by extension, Spyte could do the same thing. This meant that it wouldn’t take him time to stream mana out of his body and into the Stigma. It was like he could simply will the mana into the railgun and it would form the spell like water filling a cup. 

This seamless spellcasting made using the railgun almost too easy. It was no wonder a Mana Body was required to rise to the highest levels of power. Without it, it would be impossible to cast large circle spells even if you knew how. 

With the creation of that spell, Dirk could now utilize his greatest magical weapon. 

Of course, the kinds of spells he could create were endless with the railgun. It would simply take time to make them, along with his creativity. Pandora could only help him with so much, and he would have to make spells utilizing his other elements independently. 

And he spent time doing this for the rest of their trip. Of course, he only had so many hours to do so. 

Grandpa Qoi wanted his attention on martial arts, while Exos wanted his attention on forging. Not only that, but Dirk had yet to start the next steps of his mana cultivation or body refining. That would take some study, but it seemed he was being pulled in all directions as even Pandora wanted his attention for both magic and intimate affairs. 

Dirk did what he could, but in the end, he felt drained. 

Thankfully, that’s when they made it to their first stop. 

On the last day, the Sky King slowed as it rested in the sky. It overlooked a particularly special landscape, an iconic one to the few who frequented this area. 

The entrance to the Otherworld.