Rolling back onto his bed as the dark curtains of the night sky shut away all light, Wu let out a loud sigh and tried to recall everything that happened in the past hours. Thanks to the powerset granted by his manifest, Wez is pervious to most things that goes on in the forest itself. Though even he knew that his powers wasn't even close to being able to create the underground cave network which housed all of the college-less students comfortably. Somebody else was behind this network of caves, but nobody really knew its origin. By sliding down a channel created by Wez like a slide, Wu found himself standing alongside Wez in a dimly lit underground opening. The cave network wasn't like the lairs of the Remnant in terms of its internal structure. There are vast and wide columns spaced out over the seemingly endless space, and countless rooms were built into the supporting columns itself. The rooms are stacked one on top of another, and many of those are lit up Lighting Cast as people worked or relaxed within. The space in between the columns are used as the common and trading areas, and there were people selling food, tools, and other small items at all times. All of the college-less students do some sort of day to day work either within the caves, over in the forests, or take special jobs handed down by the Guilds, and in exchange for their labour, they receive standard credits that is then used to buy food and other supplies. "And...you would stay here then return to your home countries?" Wu asked. "Not all of us are here for the same reason." Wez explained, "Some ran away from their college, some didn't meet the requirements for specific courses later in the study, some pissed off people that they shouldn't have...But staying around here is still far better than returning home empty-handed for many. I am sure someone has told you this before, but it's the whole experience in the Academy that makes the person, not just the classes." Wu nodded in understanding. To most people on the outside, the Infinite Academy is a place of dreams, and with the opportunities came an unreasonable amount of expectations. It's the same for the students in Oxford, as many would rather suffer alone than share their internal burdens with their family members. All that to keep up the image of its perfect grandeur. Wez swiftly introduced Wu to many people that's sticking around the common area near the first column of rooms, and when Wu explained that he was an Outlier that was defeated in the Ring of Fire, he immediately earned curiosity and sympathy from many others, and a few of the girls even shared some intrigued looks when they learnt that he broke the Law of Combat for a girl that he has "complicated feelings" for. "Oh...star-crossed lovers..." After the rather pleasant basic introductions, Wu then made his return back to his little camp towards the edge of the artificial island before the communication Cast from Lera started pulsing of light. Through a tiny injection of the Wave as Wu lied on the bed, Lera's image and voice came through. "...Hey..." She said, the background in her room quiet and dark and her grey eyes seemed to have carried a certain glow in the projections of the communication Cast. Her hair looked like an absolute mess, yet that made Wu want to squish it all the more, "Is my new Cast working? Can you hear me?" "Crystal clear~" Wu said, noticing the slightly different patterns of lines on the piece of paper compared to before, "You have been working really hard all this time, haven't you?" Lera bit her lips instinctively as she hesitated, "No...if I had really, I would have won..." "You know that's not how it works." Wu said, rolling around and putting the Cast on the floor, "Not all progress can be measured by raw combat power. You know that." "Yet when you chose who to fight besides you, you chose Ver, and then Fatera." Lera said before she suddenly opened her eyes wider and covered her mouth. How could she have just said that? She clenched her fist, though forced herself to continue, "If that's not a signal about my weakness, what is?" "...We all have our own strengths and weaknesses, Lera." Wu said, continuing, "And that's nothing to be ashamed of. Without you, I couldn't have been doing this right now! And the majority of my combat arsenal are your casts...You are more important to me than you realize, and...I wish..." Wu stopped as Lera waited eagerly for him to continue. Her grey eyes looking intently at Wu as he now had to force the words to come out, "I wish you are here by my side...like before...But we need you on the inside, working with Ver and looking out for PORA." "Perhaps this is your punishment then~" Lera looked so happy all of a sudden as she held her face with both hands and hid behind a pillow, "You sure know how to make me happy, and very sad at the same time!" "Hah, I guess that can't be helped." Wu chuckled and rolled around as the feeling of sleepiness snuck upon him, "Be careful up there." "You too." Lera said, waving her hand with a bright smile as her heart beat like drums, "See you tomorrow." Then, as Wu's image disappeared, Lera flopped her head onto the pillow and fell asleep with a smile on her face. Over the next few days, Ver and Lera were able to drop offsets of Cast-making materials and books at Wu's little home as Ita came by frequently to drop off food and other supplies for him. It wasn't long before Wu felt like he's finally started his proper study at the Infinite Academy. Honestly, this isn't all too bad. Over a whiteboard made out of a cut tree trunk that's propped up on its side, Wu then started a flow chart of what he needed to increase his combat power yet again. So far, he has been able to cope with just the One-Shotter gauntlet in his right hand, but it became painfully clear extremely quickly that it's simply not enough to just be able to fire off blasts from one hand. The strongest of blasts, the Cratering-making ones, may have been extremely powerful in terms of raw power, but the lack of durability, speed, and power from Wu meant the other aspects of combat is extremely lacking for him. The Twin generals were able to help Wu with formulating his own way to fighting, but that was only the start. The remainder of the journey will be up to him and his friends. Placing the One-Shotter gauntlet in the middle of the board, Wu then flicked open the Cast-making textbook. As mentioned long ago, Casts function as special made nodes and pathways guide and transform Wave into a variety of alternate forms. The simplest Casts simply pool and redirect the Wave, while more complicated ones transform it or even use it to power other effects. The earliest Casts are designed to interact with a specific aspect of the natural world. A basic water Cast interacts with water, and fire Cast with fire, and so on. Then, subsequent Casts designed for Casts are made, which allowed for more complex Casts to be created. The Casts often needed to be powered by the users' internal pool of Wave or by using the naturally flowing Wave all around them. But as Wu had learnt in the Endless Woods saga, there are also naturally occurring minerals that had a highly-condensed form of the Wave within it. In a way, that's how the One-Shotter gauntlet was powered. So by the same logic, he never needed to stop with adding the Casts into the gauntlet themselves. What if...he could use the gauntlet as a source and power up many more pre-made Casts? Or worse yet...Wu reached forward and drew an outline of a human body before he disassembled the pieces of leather around the gauntlet and exposed the embedded gemstone and the Casts written all around it and over it. Then, he placed the gemstone near the heart of the human outline. Perhaps it is time to make THE iron man suit. Wu smiled excitedly before he immediately got to work. Ita found an old set of armor left behind by Charlie within the Ville, and she secretly dropped it off for Wu without Charlie knowing. As he scrambled around the college looking for his missing item, Wu quickly disassembled it and started adding in all of the different Casts that he thought he might need. The actual process of Cast-making isn't too difficult compared to any other handy electronic engineering work he did at university before, and with the approaches of testing one block at a time, he was able to not only reproduce sets of Casts that he needed, but also simply a few of the designs by using repeated loops and structures. Rather basic principles of computer science being applied to writing Casts, though it wasn't long before Wu realized a critical weakness to his approach. There is a reason why the Casters either often carry an entire freaking book for all of their Casts, or that they are limited to a far fewer subset of Casts in their tattoos and/or weapons. If he wanted the Boosting, Trapping, Store/Release, Bubble Bubble, Brightening, and more, he would have needed to wrap leathers around him so much that it will not only be incredibly uncomfortable but also cumbersome in battle. He was barely able to fit the new additions to his gauntlet by writing it in his sleeves and shirt, but that won't be sustainable either. He needed to revamp his entire system of containing Casts. Right now, he is standing at the cross-road of breaking through. For all of this time, nothing he did was that special, but if he is able to complete the next step, then he will have taken the first step in surpassing the previous generations of Casters in this world. "The step from mechanical machines to electronic ones...one of the four great inventions of ancient China...if you put those two together, you get miniaturized printing of Casts..." Wu murmured, circling two roughly drawn figures together. If he is able to miniaturize as much of the Cast as possible and only keep the necessary parts at their original size, then he can fit far more Casts into his suit of armor. But to get there, there are many steps along the way. He needed to know what the effects of shrinking the physical size of Casts are, figure out a way to print the Casts systematically, embed those tiny Casts onto the light armor without damaging any of its integral structures, add in safety mechanisms, connect everything together, and figure out how to easily access all of the individual Casts, potentially by writing a Cast to control Casts, and then he will take it into battle and see its efficacy. "That's right...let's do some science." Cracking his knuckles, Wu pinched a pen with the specially made Cast ink and drew away.