Ultimate Level 1 - C.230: Where It All Goes

[ Skill Description - Engineering & Tinkering Mastery ]

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Engineering & Tinkering Mastery - Epic Skill: This skill provides mastery of all crafting related to automaton, power core weapon creation as well as robotics. The crafter will be able to make all components required to build and give life to their creations when possible. Advanced materials will result in higher quality creations. When crafting Tier A objects, there is a 5% chance for a bonus trait or skill to be granted.

When crafting power core weapons, there is a thirty-five percent chance that bonus stats may be granted to the weapon. Weapons may have up to two power cores.

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What the hell is all this?!

A skill this world shouldn’t have. Do not reveal it for now. We can discuss it later.

There was a tone to the words Max had just heard in his mind. It mimicked the tone when they found those items required to make an artifact. Whatever he had just gained must be awfully dangerous if he received this warning.

“Seth?”

Everyone was looking at him, eyes narrowed and waiting to see what was going on.

“Sorry, a bit tired all of a sudden,” he lied.

Blinking a few times and then forcing a yawn, he smiled as the others copied his action.

“Cordellia, do you want to open the chest?” Max asked as he sensed its appearance.

Their ranger grinned and moved toward the metal chest, excited to be the one that got to open it.

“You ok?” Tanila asked as she came up next to him.

Frowning, he nodded.

“When we get back, I’ll tell you.”

She smiled, and they moved to join the other elf in their party who was standing by the raid sized chest. Two robotic spiders and a large robot with a ball and chain weapon were cut out of metal, etched with details and stuck to the side of the chest.

Their ranger lifted the lid and a high pitch squeal came from her.

Her outburst caused everyone else to move a little quicker to peer inside.

“Holy elf tits,” Fowl muttered as he saw what awaited the team.

Two metal belts, one thicker and wider, waited for Fowl and Batrire. A pair of bracers with etchings were locked for Cordellia and rust-colored pair of cloth like pants were for Tanila. Next to them was a pair of chain pants for Max. Two random items were waiting, both rings. Four massive red crystals finished off the loot.

Fowl didn’t hesitate, grabbing his belt and pulling it out. It had a rune that looked dwarven, but Max couldn’t place it.

“Good gods, this is amazing,” Fowl muttered as it swapped out with his old one.

“Are you going to tell us?” Max asked and Fowl shook his head, winking at him.

Batrire groaned and retrieved her, a smile appearing as she found out what it held.

Cordellia had her bracers a moment later and let out another squeal, slipping the leather and metal worked rust colored bracers on her forearms.

Sighing, Tanila took her pants and upon inspecting them, her eyes widened some, and she grinned, giving Max a wink.

“You’re all a bunch of bastards,” Max said with a sigh as they all stood there smiling and waiting for him to inspect his new pants.

The chain felt light and thin but the moment he held it, Max knew it was much stronger than it appeared.

[ Inspect Pants ]

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Crazed Crafter Chain

+25 Strength, Constitution

+25% movement bonus

Bonded

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Equipping his and giving a quick twirl to show them off, Max chuckled as Fowl whistled.

“Twenty or twenty-five?”

“I got twenty on two stats,” Fowl replied. “I’m guessing yours are twenty-five if you asked.”

Shrugging, Max winked and ignored his friend’s playful scowl.

“So, who gets a turn on these?” Max asked.

“It’s you, me and Tanila,” Fowl replied immediately.

Shaking his head, Max reached in and grabbed the four crystals.

“You two can have them. I’ll wait for the next one.”

Both nodded and soon each held a small metal ring with some runes etched on them, each sliding them on and smiling.

“I guess we’re done here. Time to explore that tower?” Tanila asked.

As they made their way through the door, lights turned on and a warehouse of so many different boxes and metal parts lined the walls. A few shelves with objects on them were near a back area with what Max recognized as tools for the creation of things with his new skill.

In the middle of the room was a portal waiting to be taken when done.

“Are we going to loot all this?” Fowl asked as he began inspecting crates, finding that some were empty while others had random metal pieces in them.

Max nodded, his mind telling him what parts he could use for something with his new skill.

The notification on the last skill waited and selecting yes. New knowledge filled his brain.

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Power Core Crafting- Epic Skill: The user may craft power cores from power crystals. These fusions will enable automatons, robotic creations and power core charged weapons to function. The quality of the power core will determine the possible power output. Advanced materials impact the creation rarity. There is a 10% chance to increase power output of core by 50%.

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Almost immediately Max saw parts that he would have ignored before and now knew they were usable for the power core creation. The knowledge that the red crystals he was holding were the items needed for creating a power core created a few questions and some possible answers for what exactly Everett and other Factions were using them for.

“How much of this can we actually carry back?” Tanila asked as she started picking up random pieces before setting them back on the shelf she was next to.

“We’ll take it all. Some will be useful and others won’t, but we can figure that out later,” Max replied.

The next thirty minutes were spent stripping the room clean and soon only bare shelves and empty boxes remained.

***

“Can you believe this?” Tom asked as he held the gun Max had given them, inspecting for a third or fourth time. “What would the dwarven kingdom think if they saw us holding one?”

“I’d get a letter asking me to return it,” Everett replied, grunting afterwards as he frowned. “The King would like to believe they have a claim to all of them, especially since they no longer produce those anymore.”

Max and Tanila smiled as they sat on the couch, watching the pair who were still struggling to believe that they had a fabled gun from old in their possession.

“At the end of the day, you can decide what to do with it,” Max said. “I’ve still got one and am not planning on sharing it or making it common knowledge that I possess it.”

Nodding, their leader looked over the list of items they had turned in downstairs.

“You realize most of this stuff no one inside our Faction really knows how to use?”

Knowing what needed to happen next, Tanila stood up and stretched.

“Tom, can you help me get better at a spell I used today? I don’t do a lot with lightning and it felt hard to control.”

Their trainer’s eyes widened as he snorted and then bobbed his head once.

“I’ll do what I can, but know that very few are skilled with lightning, which means my experience with it won’t be as strong as the others.”

Laughing, Tanila nodded and smiled as they moved toward the door.

“And yet I’m sure you’ll still teach me things that will help,” she replied as they left.

Everett had a slight frown as he watched the pair go, knowing Max needed them to be alone.

“So, time for brass tacks?”

Bobbing his head, Max nodded and began pulling out a few unique items and set them on the table.

“We talked about being honest and so I’m going to reveal a few more things that most of the time I probably wouldn’t. I picked up two new skills and I’m not sure they should be put to use.”

Max pointed at the silver metallic orb he had set down on the table. A second passed and Max pulled out the red crystal he had kept for himself.

The frown on Everett’s face grew larger as the crystal sat next to the orb.

“These are used to create power cores which can power that gun you now possess, as well as automatons and other robotic devices. I know we have never really talked about what the crystals do for the Faction but with my knowledge of the kind of power this has inside it, I need to ask a few things.”

The Faction leader shifted in his seat on the couch and gave a curt nod.

“What exactly does a crystal like this provide for the Faction?”

Grunting, Everett took a deep breath as he scooted to the edge of the couch and sighed.

Slowly, crystals began to appear in his hand, each one being set down on the table in a straight line.

“Yellow, green, red, orange, purple and clear. As you can guess, this is the order for a crystal dropped by bosses from floor one to fifty. Each one increases in power and has an immense value the higher they are.”

Tapping the red one with his finger, Everett held up three on his other hand.

“The power in the red crystal is three times more than the green one and thus nine times more than the yellow one. As you might guess, that pattern stays the same through the purple crystal but this clear one is ten times more powerful than the purple one.”

Max nodded, his eyes somehow able to sense and see the power of each crystal with his new skill. Inside his mind was a variety of thoughts and ideas on how to use them for different things. So many schematics of guns, and automatons seemed possible as the crystal power increased.

“Each Faction has a crystal at the heart of our home. It has an ability that only the Faction leader and co-leader can access, allowing us to feed the Faction crystal with these. Each crystal can only be fed once every other day regardless of color. So I can give it five different colored crystals today but I cannot feed it any of the same color for another forty eight hours. Do you follow?”

Nodding, Max took his items back and stored them, waiting for Everett to continue.

“You might wonder why I have these higher level ones and haven’t fed them yet,” the older man said with a slight smirk. “The truth is most Factions won’t absorb them, instead keeping them locked away until someone has a need for the power. It hasn’t happened in a while but there have been a few adventurers over the life of Factions who operated on the principle of forgiveness rather than permission . They upgraded a skill beyond what they were approved for and took precious resources away from the Faction. You can only imagine the kind of problems caused in the past when someone upgraded a skill or two to legendary without permission.”

Unable to help himself, Max started to chuckle as he nodded.

“I can imagine that conversation wouldn’t go well afterward.”

“No, it never does,” Everett replied. “As far as your question, those crystals are not as common as you and your group continue to bring us. In the short span of your time in our Faction we have gained more power than you can imagine. Some of our higher level tower climbers have been given chances they might normally not get for a few more years because of you all.

“Back to your original question. Those crystals represent power and strength. Being able to grant and provide skills increases to one's members helps them continue to grow stronger. Tell me, do you know what our two highest groups do in the tower now?”

Seeing Max shake his head, Everett cleared his throat.

“They farm the level forties and occasionally help those who are potentially strong enough to advance to the same stages. None of them are able to bridge the gap to the fifty-first tower floor. There is a massive increase in the monster strength. So they hope for crystals and gems.”

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? “Even the ones who have sold all their levels and ground out the bonuses again?”

Everett nodded and stood up, moving to the bookshelf behind his desk and activating the same secret storage area that was hidden.

Pulling a chest from the storage, Everett set it down on his desk, opened it and started putting large pouches on his desk.

“Look in here.”

Max got up and upon opening the pouches found each one filled with different colored gems from the tower floor.

“You could easily level someone up with these!” Max exclaimed.

“I do occasionally but only when they hit a bottleneck. The truth is these are saved for those who reach the fiftieth floor, helping them get back to farming faster. My hope is that one day you and your party will get to use these.”

Turning and pointing to the five large crystals still on the small table, Everett paused and pulled out a giant blue crystal. Power radiated from it and Max could feel and understand this one was way stronger than the clear one.

“I only have one of these. It’s been in the Faction storage for longer than anyone knows. When the time comes and you earn the right for your party to get a legendary ranked skill, this will be what is required.”

Both of them stood there in silence for a moment, taking in the power of the foot long blue crystal resting on Everett’s hand.

“So now comes the real question,” Max said. “Do we want me to try and build things with my two new skills or do you agree that for now we should keep it hidden?”

Putting the stuff he had pulled out away, the older man said nothing, his jaw muscles moving as the man considered the options before him.

“Not right now. When you hit the fiftieth floor we can talk about it then. Until then, I would suggest keeping it a secret.”

Max nodded and grinned.

“Any other secrets you want to share?”

“Nothing at the moment but I’m certain in time there will be. For now we’ll need to recover and then hit the next floor. I’m really not excited about what must be coming on the twenty-fifth floor. Everything is looking rather unpleasant.”

Roaring with laughter, Everett shook his head as he put his hands on his hips.

“Says the adventurer that is stronger than almost everyone else.”

Grinning, Max held out his hand and after shaking the older man’s, turned and moved toward the door.

“I better go see what Tanila is learning. Something tells me Tom is going to still have a few tricks up his sleeves.”

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