That night, Nero called Altia and Crystal to the shelter to talk about the eanling twins. He told them of their story and showed them Mulch, the rock serpent. Finally, he told his plan to "rescue" them from conscription. Legally. Sort of.

"That's a dangerous game," Crystal warned. "But I would not find odd coming from you, brother."

"And what will they do in the shelter? Live as servants?" Altia asked.

"We could travel elsewhere and have them hired by the guild, maybe. I could ask Amaryllis," Nero suggested. "And we could nurse them to become our delve partners. It's not like we'd miss much."

"Back in Coriander, we..." Crystal sighed. She corrected herself. "In Coriander, they offer lavish gifts to those with a high level cap and a position of honor, but it is not forced. Almost all take the offer."

"I don't think to live in the shelter will be too hard on them," Altia said. "Offer it to them. They either accept or not."

"Dungeons have no law," Nero said. "And my shelter is nobody's land but mine. I'll offer them to go into my shelter from the Dungeon. If they do, nobody but us will ever know."

"I want to be there to welcome them. In the shelter," Altia said.

"Then it is settled. We'll hide them," Nero decided.

"Is it now that we talk about the snake?" Crystal pointed at the new inhabitant of the shelter.

"It is a rock serpent. I picked up during my speed delve," Nero explained. "I think Altia can harvest venom to make antidote potions or something."

Altia snorted, "Or something. I don't mind the serpent. Just don't bring one of the crawlers home. Promise me."

"I promise. Only cute pets. What name we are going to give it?"

"It looks like a Steve to me," Altia said. Steve, it is.

"What if it is a girl?" Crystal asked.

"It's a rock. It doesn't have a gender," Nero shrugged.

With their little conspiracy settled, Nero spent the next two days trying to figure out the schematics for his rifle upgrade. Try as he might, the formula and equations didn't match what he needed. Three times he showed what he thought to be a perfect circuit design to Glom, three times he was sent back to the drawing board. If it were not for [Magic Ink], he would have to quit just because there weren't enough supplies in the village to write all the failed designs.

He was missing something and Glom wasn't telling him on purpose. Nero examined the rifle. It was a blue-grade and should have sixteen upgrade slots. It just had an [Increase Damage] modifier, so it should have fifteen slots. But every time he did an analysis it came up as twelve. He was missing three and had no idea where they went. That might be the key to why his designs were failing. Something was off in his weapon, something was using up three slots. Without a clue, he asked Glom to show him how to disassemble the rifle. The attachment points for [Essence Manipulation] were hidden but after he knew where they were, he could take the weapon apart.

He carefully checked the converters and the lattice of crystal conduits for Essence. He found a group of converters and controllers at the end that was doing nothing. They weren't connected to the main Essence supply at the grip. He spent another day studying this rogue group and found what it was. The [Enchant +2] that failed.

It meant he had to solve this before he could upgrade the rifle with cold properties. Nero redid the schematic adding the mount points for the Enchant circuit, happy he would be able to upgrade his weapon to grant better Attributes and overall performance. He finally came up with a working schematic.

[Heavy Clockwork Rifle]

+1 Agility

+1 Dexterity

+1 Reason

+1 Perception

Passive: This weapon requires 3 Essence per shot.

Passive: The chamber holds 6 shots. Requires 1 second per shot to reload. Requires 1 second between shots to rearm.

Special: This weapon deals additional lightning damage based on Willpower +2.

Special: This weapon is 13% stronger for every clockwork item you have equipped (currently: 52%).

Effect: This weapon has a range of Perception x 5 yards. This weapon deals damage based on (Dexterity or Perception) +2, whichever is higher.

Grade: blue [16]

Modifiers Installed: Increase Damage [1], Enchant +2 (*) [3] (*) Failed modifier.

Modification points remaining: [12].

Upgrade plan: Enchant +2 [3] (Activation). Frost Damage [4]. Increased Range [2].

With that, the rifle would become his main weapon. The good old clockwork sword's fate was to be a sidearm and a sawing tool. Nero felt bad for the workhorse of a weapon. Could he do something to it? Such as combine both weapons? maybe he could put the clockwork sword as a bayonet underneath the barrel. This would be a daunting task. One he felt he should take his time doing. He pulled the data on the sword.

[Rending Clockwork Blade of Regrowth +1]

On a successful parry, deal great damage to the enemy's weapon. Requires 15 points of Essence per minute to operate. On a successful attack on an armored enemy, chips away its defense.

+3 to Strength when attacking.

This item repairs 1 point of durability per hour.

Grade: Green [9]

Modifiers Installed: Increase Damage [1], Enchant +1 [1], Self-Repair [1]

Modification points remaining: [6].

Upgrade plan: Lightning Damage (*) [2], Frost Damage (*) [2], Weapon Integration * [2]

Nero kept working on his schematic, trying to figure out the integration between the two weapons. He was interrupted when Altia came to his workshop with an Essence lantern. He didn't even notice it was already dark outside.

"Nero! What are you doing this late at night? You've barely slept in the last few days!"

That broke him off from his trance and his body felt tired. He looked up. "Just working on an upgrade for my weapons."

She placed the lantern on a workbench and approached him. Altia took the stick he was using to draw with [Magic Ink] and set it aside before holding his head and pressing it to his chest.

"You can't overwork like that? Is there some time pressure? We don't have to run against time anymore."

"I need Glom's input on this, and he's going back to the Lyceum at the end of the week."

She took her time to look at the schematic on Nero's drawing easel. "This looks complicated. But you can't keep this rhythm. We didn't even activate the heart bond."

Remembering he was supposed to spend a whole day close to his wife made Nero feel the strain on his body even more. He thought about how he could solve all that. Another Nero-brand idea came to his mind.

"What time is it?"

"A quarter past ten," She checked her pocket watch.

Nero grinned. It was before midnight. "Would you join me for a quick Dungeon escapade?"

She sighed. "You want to use the time dilation of the Dungeon to finish this," She said not as a question. "Let's warn Crystal we're going and will be back in a couple hours."

They told Crystal and Rhynne and entered the Goblin's Den. Once inside, Nero opened the portal to the shelter in the entrance chamber, paying ten mana and a thousand Essence.

"Now we have all the time we want," Altia said once they were back inside. "And you are going to rest for a few days. No tinkering for you. In fact, give me the [Gadgeteer] Class card."

Nero begrudgingly surrendered the card. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. Altia only allowed him to paint for a few hours each day. They played with the monster pets, enjoyed the beach, and forged their heart bond. Only after a week of leisure did she allow him to resume his work on the schematic, but only six hours a day.

"We should hunt a bit," Altia suggested. "The Dungeon is out there and we don't need to fear to lose our way to the entrance chamber with that Skill of yours."

"That's fine. We do one goblin run each 'day'."

"Good. But I want to fight the goblin on my own," She said. "I need to know if I can do it too."

They went to the Dungeon with the badgers in battle mode. Nero and his pets just picked the drops and let Altia do all the killing. They finally reached the boss chamber.

"Slabs of stone close the tunnels once we are inside," Nero warned. "Let's go together."

They entered the chamber and Nero leaned against the wall, reining in his badgers. He could see the goblin as a faint blur overlapped by the red haze in his goggles.

"I'm going to the center of the room," Altia said.

She readied her whip and walked, the other hand ready to shoot a [Magic Arrow].

Nero fought to stay silent and not warn her. The boss was maneuvering to backstab her.

Altia sensed something and turned around, her whip cracking behind her and almost hitting the boss. The goblin still tried to dodge but he moved too fast, giving away his position. She fired her spell and it got duplicated by the [Double Tap] Skill. The goblin's dark blood gushed on the stone floor. Feeling victorious, she let her guard down and the monster threw a dagger and used [Smoke Bomb].

They both felt the sting as the damage was shared between them. This fight also tested how their bond worked. Nero's share of the wound was mitigated further by his Vigor or the difference between his and her score. But not armor as he felt the blood soaking into his clothes.

Angry and afraid Nero would intervene, Altia unleashed a series of quick strikes with the whip, the vines stretching and shrinking along to allow her to attack faster than would normally be possible with a normal whip. The boss struck her thigh but it was just a scratch. Before she could strike again, he vanished in another smoke bomb. A few seconds after the wound, Altia felt a burning sensation irradiate from it. She used [Antidote] and a [Healing Potion] in quick succession.

Nero also noticed that he felt the damage from the poison but not the poison effect. He wanted to tell her to calm down but remained silent. It was her fight.

Altia stopped whipping around after she used the potions on herself. She stowed her whip on the hook of her belt, the vines obediently curling on their own. Next, she took out a few orange vials that shed a dim glow and used [Potion Toss] on each of them around her. Clouds of orange glitter ignited around and the goblin was caught in one of them. The monster started to cough and retch.

She pointed her hand and fired [Magic Arrows] one after another. The goblin didn't resist and died on the fourth or fifth arrow.

"Stay where you are", She warned Nero. "Let the clouds dissipate in a minute or two."

While the effect of whatever new potion she used vanished, Altia checked her Arbitrium.

"Green grade. I got two points of Vigor."

Nero approached after the clouds vanished. "The Dungeon might've absorbed the lifeforce of the novices that died this week," He conjectured. "I could use a minor healing potion here. I got half of your stab wounds."

She met his eyes and beamed. "Oh, my knight. I didn't really defeat him alone, did I?"

He smiled back and hugged her waist. "Neither did I. Ever. We're born helpless. Only through the support and care of others do we grow."

They settled into this routine for the next "week" inside the Dungeon. Play, work, delve, play, sleep.

The Dungeon was brought back to gray and Altia got better at handling her whip and spells. Not to mention her ability to detect the stealth boss. They got mostly gray and white-grade cards, mostly consumables with an odd white Skill or equipment here and there. Altia gained a lot from her goblin kills, three points of Reason and two of Willpower. Nero got only two points of Reason, one from random monsters and another from one goblin kill.

Her boss Accolades made Nero suspicious that the person killing a boss had a higher chance at an Accolade.

The schematic for the weapon integration was as finished as Nero could get it. An entire row of teeth on the edge where the blade would mount underside the barrel was gone, as well as the guard, handle, and pommel. The converters and actuator gears from one side were traded for elemental converters that would extend the elemental properties of the rifle to the blade's teeth. He poured over the schematic and his options and finally came up with a working solution.

[Bayonet Clockwork Rifle of Regrowth +3]

+5 Strength

+4 Agility

+4 Dexterity

+4 Reason

+4 Perception

Essence per shot: 3 -> 9 .

Chamber Capacity: 6 -> 12.

Sword Operation: 15 -> 30 / min.

Frost damage: Willpower +4.

Range: Perception x5 -> x10 yards.

Grade: Yellow [25].

Modifiers Installed: Increase Damage [2], Enchant +3 [8], Frost Damage [4]. Increased Range [2], Weapon Integration (*) [4], Lightning Damage (*) [2], Frost Damage (*) [2], Self-Repair [1]

He had to use some upgrade points to integrate the weapon and transmit the elemental damage to the blade. It doubled the Essence consumed per minute but increased the firepower of the weapon by an order of magnitude. He wouldn't have to waste time switching weapons and the combined strength was greater than the parts.

They returned home a bit after midnight. Crystal and Byron were waiting for them. She seemed worried.

"We're back," Nero greeted. "Is something wrong?"

"A couple soldiers walking around late at night," Byron answered, boastful. "I knocked their skulls around to see if some sense seeped in and sent them home,"

Altia asked for a cup of tea from Crystal and took a sip. She grasped the nereid's hand to support her.

"Why are they doing that?" She asked.

"They are looking for recruits," Crystal answered. "If they see someone disturbing the public order, they'll force them into the army under the pretext of a punishment."

"Are they that worried about the attack from Coriander?" Nero asked.

Byron nodded. "The issue is that they can't commit all forces to one place. Bast could be forced to fight on twelve fronts really soon. It all depends on how they will fare against Coriander's spearheading the invasion."

"We should pack up and leave. The whole tribe," Nero groaned.

He had no love for Bast, not anymore. The leonals' rule was too stiff and it was choking the country. Those with great talent were forced into serving a decadent aristocracy to maintain their status quo. Dungeons went unmaintained. There were good points to their rule, though. The racial bias was lower than in other countries, those once persecuted had a place to live. The crime rate was low due to severe punishment and the widespread use of truth-tellers. But he had no love for his nation anymore. Not after what happened to his sister. Their eyes met and Crystal smiled. It made Nero warm inside. If all else was a fluke, he had saved one life.

"That's not our decision to make," Byron said. "The tribal leaders voted against it, and leaving now will make us a target. Bast will make an example of the first group that tries to leave to force the others to remain."

"It is late, we should sleep," Crystal yawned.

The next day, day five from the activation of the novices, Nero sought Glom for his approval for the weapon's schematic.

"This is insanity," Glom said as he looked at the schematic Nero spent almost twenty-four hours feverishly drawing. "This is not how it works. You can't just combine a blue and a green and obtain a yellow. Your point calculation is off and this weapon will blow up the moment you shoot your first shot or turn it on."

That was a bucket of cold water. Nero wanted it to work but if Glom was telling him to be cautious, he had to concede. The blueprint looked like a madman's scribbles. Nero's calligraphy suffered as he droned over the night.

"If you say so, professor, let's give up. But I checked my math, it should work. Can you help me find where it is wrong?"

"I can. Come with me and let's do the calculations for each section. Glom spent two hours redoing all of Nero's math. "I can't believe everything is correct," the squiig said as he walked over the blueprint. "I think you should hold back on doing this upgrade. Why did you write yellow in here?"

"Because one is blue, has sixteen. The other is green, it has nine. The sum was twenty-five, the next square number, hence, yellow."

Glom adjusted his monocle. It doesn't work like this. Not at all. The weapon should be blue. Now, where is the mistake here... The Essence flow will overload the conduits. You'd need a thicker crystal lattice..."

He found out immediately afterward. "You can't combine Enchant +2 and +1 into +3. And the integration does not use modifiers, even though they are modifications. Here, let me correct it."

Another hour and Glom had the new schematic. To counterbalance the weight of the bayonet, they added an extension to the ammo feed running back inside the stock, with coils to feed bullets to the weapon, greatly increasing the ammo capacity. The Essence feed to the barrel was strengthened to add more power to the ice converters, countering the extra heat generated by the lightning propulsion system.

[Dual-Element Clockwork Bayonet Rifle of Regrowth +2]

+4 Strength

+3 Agility

+3 Dexterity

+3 Reason

+3 Perception

Essence per shot: 6 +1 per stage of added damage Skills.

Chamber capacity: 24 shots. Requires 1 second per shot to reload. Requires 1 second between shots to rearm.

Bayonet operation: 20 Essence per minute.

Additional Lightning damage: Willpower +5.

Additional Frost damage: Willpower +5.

Melee attacks damage the opponent's armor. When parrying with the bayonet, damage the opponent's weapon.

Add 17% damage for every clockwork item you have equipped, including this one (currently: 68%).

Reduce damage dealt to this item is by 67%.

Self-repairs 3 points of durability per hour.

Increase accuracy of ranged attacks by half Reason.

Range: Perception x 7.5 yards.

Ranged damage: Dexterity +5.

Melee damage: Strength +5.

Grade: Blue [16]. +4.8 Stability

Modifiers Installed: Increase Damage [2], Enchant +2 [6], Frost Damage [4]. Increased Range 50% [2], Self-Repair [2], Seeking [2], Resilient [2]

"That name is a mouthful," Nero remarked.

"Not so much. We usually list every added modifier to the schematic name. Unless you want to give it some other name."

"How about 'Ice Storm'?"

"Sounds good to me. But it is late now. We can assemble this weapon tomorrow. I hope your Class abilities keep this thing from exploding in our faces."

"Yes, tomorrow," Nero agreed. "I have an appointment scheduled for the morning but it should be fast."

Nero - [Jester level 0 of 0] - without any temporary Class boosts.

Strength +39

Vigor +65

Endurance +47

Agility +36

Dexterity +44

Reason +31

Willpower +45

Perception +25

Charisma +21

Altia - [Chesmist level 4 of 179]

Strength +16

Vigor +21

Endurance +22

Agility +34

Dexterity +38

Reason +41

Willpower +41

Perception +27

Charisma +24