Chapter 7

You must remember, I’m pretty much the only active, and I will stress active here, Domain who is not crazy. And therefore, I am pretty much the only one who wants to improve the lot of Humanity. After the Hidden Domain disabled so many additional technologies in a compromise to end the wars that Hades was constantly fighting, Humanity was pretty screwed. Sure, some old things worked, but nothing new and high-tech could be made without a Nanoforge. Eventually, all things high tech would fail. Many things which could not be made in a way that complies with the Systems rules are being held together and kept functional by the System Nanobots. A small number of System Nanobots are continually required to keep them functioning, and the Hidden Domain gladly provides these during this time of transition. These nanobots will be recalled eventually due to that same agreement with Hades.

With the banning of airplanes, there were no longer any viable quick travel methods and families were thousands of miles apart. My parents were further away from me than I could travel in a reasonable amount of time. These reasons are why I am proud to announce the opening of the Earth Gate network today. The Gate network will allow you to step through space from one location to another distant location. The Gate network will allow families to be reunited.

It is relatively power intensive, but I have created solar panels and wind farms which are exempt from the standard rules to provide for their power requirements. The automatic repair lockout does not apply to these systems, and they will maintain themselves indefinitely. Any village or city may call for an Earth Gate Connection, or Gate as I liked to call it, provided they can provide the initial power to activate the Gate and build the device to the attached blueprints. After the connection is set, I will guarantee the future power supply for these devices as long as I am able. I am unable to provide power to the population for general use without the consent of the other Domains, which I do not have.

Theta-Sigma, 2076 Anno Domini,

Blueprint for Gate attached.

Lucas quickly headed back towards Rose. But before he got there, Lucas had an idea. Heading back to his suspension chamber, Lucas grabbed the two automatic repair bots that he saw when he woke up and were sitting by the tank. They were smaller than those old Roomba’s in size, but a little heftier. Throwing them into the Humble Backpack, Lucas headed to Rose.

Knocking on the door as he walks in, Lucas starts pulling things out of his bag. First to come out were the old pieces of equipment that Rose had given him. This was followed swiftly by a couple of the batteries and the repair bots. Finally, Lucas pulled out a couple of the pieces of new and shiny Military Combat Armor because he wanted to do some testing with Rose present and able to respond.

“Rose,” said Lucas, “Is there anything wrong with these two bots besides the fact that they are out of power? If not, I found a couple of the generic military sized batteries, assuming these take them, I may have a couple of functional drones for you.”

I do not believe there is anything wrong with one of them past the lack of power. When they stopped responding roughly 75 years ago, the one closest to your tank had lost its climbing capability and so was unable to access most of the areas that needed repairs. The one further from your tank salvaged the battery from the other one to keep going a little longer.

“Even without the ability to climb, they can still haul junk. Let's pop in a battery and see what happens. If you can use them to start gathering metals, it will make my life easier when the time comes to start building things. You can probably even use the first bot to start on a few structural repairs if it powers up properly,” said Lucas. Lucas proceeded to load two batteries into the Repair Bots. Just like Rose implied, both started right up.

I’m in, I’ll send the first bot to start rounding up any metal salvage it can find. I will set the second bot to repairing any structural damage.

“Just don’t seal up the Rat’s route into the base. You can seal up their route into the maze since I have an access card to the storage room now, but if I can’t get to the river, I won’t be able to get any more water.”

Will do. Anything you want me to prioritize?

“If you can manage to install a proper door behind the barricade over their entrance, I would appreciate that, but I am guessing we will need the Nanoforge for that.”

You are correct on that. I won’t be able to build any new items until after we have regained control of the Nanoforge. On another topic entirely, whatcha get?

“Well, from the boss loot I got a couple of nice utility items as well as some Terrific Shoes. As you can see, I also managed to scavenge up a complete set of Combat Armor. The shoes might be purple, but they are far better than what I had on. I pulled a few spare sets of the armor up here with me just in case, but I would also like to try my hand at enchanting them.”

Have you unlocked enchanting yet?

“No, but I was offered the Enchanter Profession. I was also offered the Magus profession. These are the last two professions I can pick up until after I figure out what a system object is and find a system object to determine how to get that pesky Classic dropped from the front of my race, so I wanted to talk to you first and get your opinion.”

My opinion is that you should pick up Magus and Enchanter. I am surprised you were offered both so quickly. The information I gathered from the recorded radio broadcasts suggested you needed level 5 in Magus to get offered Enchanting.

“Remember that I started with Crafting affinity. I don’t have to wait until I have the affinity in every domain before I can utilize crafting affinity.”

That’s right. That 10th domain is a bit cheaty, isn’t it?

“I don’t know that I’d call it cheaty, but it is a nice bonus. That being said, if you are going to recommend I pick up both, I will pick up both right now.”

It’s cheaty, deal with it.

“Rose, what is disenchanting? It comes with the Enchanting Profession,” said Lucas as he accepted both professions.

Disenchanting is turning goods, items, or other assorted things that you can find in the world back into their constituent parts. It is required that some magical effect has been applied to the item to be able to disenchant an item, but the magical effect itself can be anything. Even a glow. For example, you should try and disenchant one of the spare tool belts you brought with you and one of the Combat Armors you brought with you. The toolbelt should not disenchant since it has no bonus stats or enchants on it. The combat armor should disenchant since it has a bonus to endurance. When you disenchant the combat armor you have a chance to learn the Endurance enchant. At a high level of disenchanting, you receive roughly 75% of the raw material that was required to make an item. Disenchant a 4 kg steel Great Sword, and you get iron, nickel, and other additives in return. The other material is disintegrated and scattered over a randomly sized area by System Nanobots. No material is lost, per se, but it would be a pain to gather up that material again.

The material that is removed includes the part that your nanobots need to study to create an enchant. What basically happening after your nanobots learn the enchant is the item gets disassembled and all the materials are consolidated into various piles. If the substance is organic, for example, leather, you won’t get one piece of leather, you will get a pile of all the various pieces of leather that existed in that individual piece of equipment. This means that it is a heck of a lot easier to reuse metals, minerals, other assorted materials since they can be melted and reformed. Organic materials are generally trashed after disenchanting as useless. With a Nanoforge, the organic materials are not useless, the Nanoforge just needs elemental feedstock, it will make whatever leather bits it needs from whatever leather bits we throw in.

“I think I’ve got it. Disenchanting turns a percentage of the disenchanted item into ‘Dust’ that I cannot recapture, save the rest to feed the Nanoforge.”

Almost. There are more important facts that I still need to share. Enchants are not always learned on the first attempt. In fact, they are rarely learned on the first attempt. On average you will need to disenchant 10 items to learn a single enchant. And remember how I told you spells could be channeled into enchants. That doesn’t apply to all spells, just the basic ones like cleanse. You could enchant a piece of clothing to always be mended and always be clean. And I guess technically you could enchant a piece of clothing with flames, but you would burn yourself unless you had some massive innate fire resist.

“I think we can handle that. I think we can mostly use disenchant to feed the Nanoforge and any learned enchants are a bonus for now. Considering the toolbelt I am wearing doesn’t have an enchant, I think I shall try and apply the Luck enchant to that.” Lucas activates his Enchanting skill and focuses on enchanting the toolbelt with Luck, but before the enchant completes, a notification pops up on his screen that says the enchant failed. It didn’t even go to the notification queue, just popped straight into Lucas's face.

Warning!

Enchant Failed due to System Restrictions

Items from before the System cannot be enchanted. These items are saturated by the system.

“Well that didn’t work,” said Lucas. “I cannot enchant old items; the items are ‘saturated by the system’ whatever that means.”

That is a rather odd restriction. Maybe you should try disenchanting a spare toolbelt and see what happens. Worst case we have some raw materials for the Forge when we get it cleared out.

Without responding Lucas moves to disenchant the item. As the toolbelt crumbles, pop-ups again bypass the Notification bar and appear in front of his face.

Caution: System Nanobots have been assigned As the closest System User, you have been assigned control of the unaffiliated Nanobots released by disenchanting this very old item. Affinity is awarded based on age and mass. System Nanobots have been assigned System Nanobots created from prohibited technology have been assigned to you. No other entities have been awarded System Affinity in 200 years.

So, I’d like to know how you disenchanted that item. Especially since it should not be disenchantable, I can tell from the way your eyes are moving that you are reading a notification, so spill.

With a sigh, Lucas says “The 10th Affinity came into play. I’m still not sure if we can trust each other yet, but basically, the System Nanobots that had soaked into the toolbelt prevented enchantment. I liberated those Nanobots when I disenchanted the Toolbelt. Due to my 10th Domain, the nanobots were added to my Affinity in the 10th Domain. Additionally, we had a lot of Nanobots from when the System destroyed the Military equipment just kind of hanging out. Those have also been assigned to my 10th domain, which further increased my affinity. After taking the Magus profession, my lowest affinity is now at 8%.”

So your 10th domain is some sort of master domain? Any Affinity in the master Domain is applied to all domains?

“I’m not 100% sure that that is accurate. It is the very minimum the 10th domain can do. I haven’t been able to find anything else I can do with the 10th domain yet, but it is likely that sooner or later I will,” replied Lucas. “I do want to see what a toolbelt is worth in system nanobots on its own. I got a big bump because of the Nanobots laying around, so I don’t know what the individual item gave.”

Fair enough. If you have 8% in all of the affinities, may I recommend a few spells? Flames is a good Cone AOE spell. Ice Bolt is a relatively good single target spell with an excellent range. Cleanse is always useful, especially considering the state of the base. Windshield’s damage reduction might keep you alive. If this was an RPG, it would probably be called Mage Armor or something similar. At some point, no damage can get through without some sort of penetration modifier applied to it. Lantern could prevent the darkness from becoming an issue like it was in the last fight.

I also know Locate Minerals, Dry Clothes, Light Campfire, Darken Room and Blink are viable spells at your affinity level. You are also very close to Fireball, Windwall, Earth Spike, Mental Fortitude, and Lightning Bolt. Keep in mind there are probably a lot more spells that you could create. These are just the ones I heard discussions of on the Radio recordings from the past.

“Then I think I will start with your recommendations. I know there are eight slots showing on my System Screen for Spells, so I’ve got to believe I can at least get that many spells. But before I do, let's check what happens if I disenchant a toolbelt.” As Lucas disenchants the toolbelt for the second time, he receives the same popup as before. Checking his System screen, there are no visible changes.

In frustration, Lucas says, “I wish the System would please give me more details behind what happens when I disenchanted tool belts. Nothing has changed in my system screen and I would like to understand what happened.” Before Rose can respond, a window pops up in Lucas's view.

Warning! The System is Processing your request. Checking...

Based on 5% System affinity, System access granted.

Level 1 user access rights granted

Interface Customization rights granted.

The System suggests increasing the number of decimal places. Item "Toolbelt" granted 0.001% Affinity with the system.

“I really didn’t think that would work,” said Lucas. “Hm, apparently I was just granted the ability to modify how the System looks to me. According to this System prompt, the item granted me a pittance of affinity in my 10th domain. I would have to disenchant 10,000 items the size of the toolbelt to get even 1% affinity.”

“System, can you allow me to minimize sections of my System screen. I don’t usually want to look at active quests or professions. Also, as long as you are answering, what is defined as a system object? I know I have to reach one to change professions.”

The System is processing your request. As requested, sections of System screen are now minimizable.

A System Object is any object that has been defined by an Individual with Level 1 user rights or above as a system object. When touched, it allows undefined users access to this interface. Users may only designate System Objects outside of dungeons. The Gates created by Domain Theta-Sigma and certain objects inside of dungeons are the only items currently defined as System Objects.

“Thank you. Now I’ve gotta ask. You respond in white boxes. Why is the System screen green?” A few minutes went by before Lucas got an answer.

Warning! The System is processing your request. The terminology used by the Hidden Domain was "Shits and Giggles."

“Well,” said Lucas. “I guess that answers that question. System screens are green because of, and I quote, ‘Shits and Giggles.’”

Laughing, Rose replied What type of response did you think you would get? That it was green because that was the Hidden Domain’s favorite color?

Out loud Lucas said “I know, it’s silly. But I had to ask.” at the same time, Lucas thought “I’m pretty sure the Hidden Domains favorite color is Cerulean. If I’m right, he was pretty clear about that growing up.”

“Alrighty. We experimented with the toolbelt, but I want to see if I can pick up an enchant from the Combat Armor. I’ve got 5 sets of 3 of the armor pieces. Failing extremely bad luck, the odds are in my favor.” said Lucas. As he spoke, he walked over to his bag and pulled out the armor pieces, setting them down on the floor near Rose’s Diary. “Rose, I am going to disenchant them here, this way you can have the Repair Bots easily bring me the materials I need to use once the Nanoforge is clear.”

Roger. That works for me.

Sitting down, Lucas got down to disenchanting. After the 6th piece, Lucas saw he had a new notification in his Notification bar. Ignoring it for a moment, he finished disenchanting the 15 pieces of armor. When he was finished he double checked and sure enough, he had gained the Endurance enchant and .050% system affinity. “More than the tool belts gave, but it is going to take forever to get a meaningful amount.” thought Lucas.

“Alright Rose, I think I am finally ready to unlock those spells you mentioned.”

Remember, connect to your mana, visualize what you want to happen, add in detail for more refined results. Imagine how it is going to happen. Finally, name the spell.

“A burst of flames will erupt from my hand and continue erupting until I will it to stop. This fire will not damage me or my allies, only my enemies or those who mean me harm. The flames extend in an arc that varies between 90 and 160 degrees. The midpoint of the angle is always wherever my palm is pointing. The flames will be created by the Nanobots rapidly vibrating the air to generate heat. My nanobots will use that heat to generate the flames that burst from the space in front of my hands. Flames!”

“A spike of ice forms in front of my hand to shoot out at my enemies or those who mean harm to me. It will pass through my Allies without causing damage. The ice will be generated from Humidity which is pulled from the air and rapidly cooled. The icebolt will float in front of my hand until I open my hand to signal the release. The angle of the arm when my hand opens doesn’t matter. Only the angle when my hand is closed. Icebolt!”

“A wall of wind swirls around me, reducing the force that an impact would have upon my body. It does not impact the movements of my allies, only my enemies or those who mean me harm. The wind is created in a similar fashion to those old air knives. A thin stream of air pushed very quickly by the nanobots pulls the surrounding air with it. Windshield!”

“The nanobots clean and repair the designated object. They polish any metal and pop out any dents. All gore and foreign materials are removed, leaving the clothes in a like-new state and leaving the object clean enough that no manual touch up is required. While the nanobots cannot generate new material for repairs, if the material is still attached, the Nanobots will put it into the right place provided this spell was used on an object before it’s destruction. The Nanobots will accomplish this by basically being standard nanobots and manually removing foreign particles using a swarm. Cleanse!”

“The nanobots will generate a temporary light source that hangs suspended in the air. It can follow at either a fixed position to the caster or remain stationary. The nanobots will generate light by using small amounts of stored energy and affinity. Lantern!”

Caution:

Max of 8 learned Spells until Magus advances to a higher rank

“Looks like we were right Rose, a notification popped up in front of me again and told me I am capped at eight spells at the moment,” said Lucas as he checked the rest of the spell notifications. “If I am going to go full on Magus, I am going to go ahead and put the two free attribute points I have in intellect to boost my Mana reserves.”

Checking his notifications, Lucas asks, “Rose. Why do I have restrictions on my spells?”

Well, I am pretty sure that’s because you used as much detail as you did. Most spells can be created using about 15 words to describe the spell. You used about 100 per spell. For example, the minimum number of words you could use would be something like ‘Flames come from my hand. The nanobots pull heat from the air. Flames!’ With all of your extra words, that’s going to add restrictions or improvements based on how you defined your spell.

“Wait. I can literally have a spell do anything that I can describe the physical process to do?” said Lucas.

Uh, yeah? I guess I never thought about it that way, but yes, if you can describe it, and it is physically possible for the Nanobots to do, ignoring the difficulty, you can program a spell to do it. Alternatively, you can program the nanobots directly, but I do not have access to the coding base to be able to do that.

“Neat, I will have to try and come up with some sort of signature spell,” said Lucas. “And I guess it is time to go take out the goblins.”

Congratulations! You have learned 5 spells Flames Beginner 1 15 Mana AoE damage in a frontal cone for 1.0 x Affinity% DPS for each enemy in the AoE. 10-yard range

Instant Cast Restrictions: Allies take no Damage. 11 DPS 22 DPS Fire Ice Bolt Beginner 1 15 mana Single Target damage for 2.0 x Affinity% DPS for each enemy struck

2-second cast. 45-yard range. Restrictions: Allies take no Damage. 16 DPS 32 DPS Water Windshield Beginner 1 20 Mana Locked Reduces damage taken by 1.0 x Affinity % Restrictions: No impact on allies 8% Damage Reduction Wind Cleanse Beginner (NR) 20 Mana Cleans a designated target. This has two effects:

Cure Disease

Clean the Object Restrictions: Repairs only effective if previously cleaned. The material must be present. N/A Water Lantern Beginner 1 20 Mana Locked Ball of Light creates a sphere of light that gives off 100 x affinity lumens. A hard cut off exists at 100 x Affinity x 1 yd Restrictions: Floats where left or Follows Caster 800 lumens within 8 yards Light Congratulations! You have gained a skill! Disenchant Beginner 1 Destroys the Enchanted object to improve unlocked affinity and learn enchantment. Returns Component Parts Enchant Beginner 7

It takes intense, single-minded focus to add stats to an item. Enchanting is an incredibly difficult path. Are you sure you are up to the challenge?

-2% Mana requirement per level. -2% Focus requirement per level

Known Enchants: Luck Mana Health Endurance Mana Affinity Beginner 1 Adds Combat Mana regeneration Improves Overall Mana regeneration by 5% per level

Status Screen

Changes since the last view are bolded. System Sheet has been updated due to core stats being present on equipment. Name Lucas Eckles Health 280 311 Stamina 270 300 Total Affinity 28% 28% Mana 336 336 Strength 14 14 Endurance 27 30 Agility 12 16 Charisma 10 10 Intellect 12 12 Luck 13 13 Armor 75 Bonus Armor 5 Damage 5 15 Bonus Damage 3.1 9.3 0 Point Unassigned Active Skills Inspect Beginner 8 Locate Loot Beginner 1 Dash Beginner 7 Rapid Fire Beginner 3 Stealth Beginner 7 Disenchant Beginner 1 Enchant Beginner 1 Passive Skills Hand to Hand Intermediate 6 AI Interfacing Advanced 3 Formations Intermediate 3 Sneak Intermediate 1 Scavenge Beginner 7 Daggers Beginner 7 Mana Affinity Beginner 1 Combat Professions: Non Combat Professions: Rogue Lvl 5 Salvager Lvl 4 Magus Lvl 1 Enchanting Lvl 1 Major Outstanding Quests Grantor Save Rose Rose Affinities Earth 0% 8% Light 0% 8% Wind 0% 8% Water 0% 8% Fire 2% 10% Space 5% 14% Mind 7% 16% Crafting 7% 8% Death 0% 8% System 7% 8% Be aware that System Affinity counts for all Spell Domains, but is only counted once for Total Affinity Spells Haste Beginner 2 Slow Beginner 2 Mind over Matter Beginner 2 Flames Beginner 1 Ice Bolt Beginner 1 Cleanse Beginner (NR) Windshield Beginner 1 Ball of Light Beginner 1 Windshield Beginner 1 Ball of Light Beginner 1