Chapter 25 - Core Issue

When the monocle connected to Sal’s skin, he felt a sudden shift beyond anything he’d ever experienced. It was like a blanket of reassuring clarity suddenly enveloped him, letting him see things without a hint of anxiety.

All his fears of not being able to make the tracker that Doctor Ameye specified melted away and left him with a solid faith in his own capability. The sensation was completely different from the Crafting specifications that threw themselves at his eyes when he activated the Mythcrafter ability. He was able to calmly take in information all around him without any of the accompanying doubts.

Sal looked down at the grid of pages that Doctor Ameye had sent over; the monocle flashed red as it pulled the relevant information from each source, collating it. All the hints and tips were suddenly a singular construct and Sal knew exactly what was expected of him. Separately, the pages were ambiguous, but together, they gave a clear vision, and Sal wanted to execute it immediately.

Chatfield’s voice sounded out, and Sal realized he had missed half of his sentence. The monocle managed to deduce the meaning beyond the words, and Sal knew that Chatfield was excited about the Mythcrafter ability. Little clues became obvious as Chatfield’s body language gave away his eagerness to see Sal start the tracker. How his eyes moved between the materials and the blueprints. How the corner of his mouth twitched upward more regularly than before. How his tone had pitched ever so slightly.

Sal could deduce all the little tells that told him a completely different story from the words that were being spoken. The monocle was truly an incredible piece of equipment and there was no way Sal was going to part with it after seeing its effects. With that knowledge in mind, Sal attempted to manage Chatfield’s expectations.

“I’m going to use the monocle to assist with the construction of the tracker. Now that I know how the materials work, I’m going to use a blend of my designs and Doctor Ameye’s. If there are materials left, I’ll create another monocle with the same process, and I’ll keep one and sell you the other.”

Sal spoke in a matter-of-fact tone and felt as though the Calm ability had nullified some of his speech pattern. What would normally have been an apologetic proposal came out as a statement of fact. Chatfield’s nod was an indicator that the terms were fine for him, but Sal noticed a small release of tension in his shoulder blades. He was clearly relieved, and further proof was the slightly more animated movement when he took his seat on the stool. It was like a series of micro-tells informing Sal of everything.

When Sal turned his attention back to the design, he brought up his own mental image of Quest’s tracker, and then layered it against Doctor Ameye’s proposals. Deduction picked out the relevant information without bombarding Sal with a trial-and-error approach. It was like a synergy had been reached with the two abilities, and they were talking to each other about the best route forward.

Sal closed his left eye so he could concentrate his attention through the monocle. It didn’t improve anything, so he opened his eye again and watched as the skills picked apart the design. Much to Sal’s surprise, Deduction highlighted the fact that the weapon-oriented evolutionary trait didn’t synchronize with the tracker. Mythcrafter had found a solution based on Sal’s intent, but it wasn’t ideal. It would likely have created a set of offensive abilities on the tracker that would allow for essence absorption.

Sal waited patiently as the calculations ran in front of him. A series of virtual blueprints attempted a build and then changed to find a more optimal solution. Adding moonsilver and scarlet screen had drastically improved the capabilities of his original design, but Doctor Ameye’s advice looked to be a stark reality. It wasn’t going to be anything lower than a Rare-grade item if he used those materials and added the evolutionary trait.

A lower-tier starting point would give the tracker a much better evolutionary path, as it would acquire more skills with each stage of growth. Sal didn’t want to make concessions with such rare materials, so he focused his attention on finding a solution. Every time the Mythcrafter ability snapped the design to the Rare grade starting point, Sal would drag it back to Common, and each time it would fail. When that didn’t work, Sal gradually pulled it back by stages, from Upper Rare grade, to Mid, and then finally to Low.

When the design showed it was stable, Sal attempted to pull it back a single stage to Upper Uncommon grade and held his breath. For some reason, his normal sense of tension and anxiety was nowhere to be found. There was no anticipation in Sal’s body, and he unconsciously realized that the Calm effect was subduing those emotions. A few seconds later, with multiple iterations calculating in front of him, Sal felt a sliver of hope as the blueprint almost completed before failing with a slight flash.

Rather than being disheartened, Sal recreated the simulation in his head and paid attention to the area that flashed. It was the core.

“Okay, then let’s try this,” Sal whispered as he pushed the calculation for the tracker to one side and focused on the essence core component.

The grades weren’t necessarily the problem; it was the fact that it was being added as a raw component. None of Doctor Ameye’s notes had made any reference to the cores, so Sal was left to determine a course of action himself. He looked at the blueprint and noted that the cores were equipped with self-replenishing runes, which took up a chunk of available surface area.

Sal straightened suddenly and sighed. He was an idiot. With a slight shake of his head, he turned each of the pages and let Deduction compile the information available. He had already read the paragraph from Doctor Ameye about the surface area, and something as simple as not looking at the other side of a sheet had almost derailed him.

“Let’s try that again,” Sal muttered as he reformed the calculations without the core operating as a battery.

As far as he could tell, it would restrict his usage of the tracker as it needed to recharge over time, but that was a concession he was willing to make if it gave him a few hours at a time, or allowed him to sync it with an external core. Not having it integrated made the lowering of grades much easier, and Sal found himself hitting a wall when he tried to move from the Upper Uncommon grade to Upper Common grade. The difference this time was that there were no hints or clues about how to make it lower than that.

No flashes appeared, and nothing obvious struck Sal. He even changed around a few of the runes to see whether they’d lower the specs, but it didn’t work. After an age of trial and error, the lowest he managed to get to was Low Uncommon grade. Sal didn’t know whether the movement from Low, to Mid, to Upper would constitute an evolution, and he didn’t want to end up setting the bar too low. The last thing he wanted was to needlessly increase the distance between the starting and finishing line.

“Would it help to talk through your process?” Chatfield asked as he placed a cup of coffee in front of Sal, who looked at it in surprise.

Clearly the Perception ability was taking a rest while he was at work. With a quick glance to Chatfield, Sal smiled and gestured at the air in front of him.

“Just going through a series of projections, and incorporating Doctor Ameye’s advice. His evolutionary rune works for the design; the materials are great, but it’s a question of whether I want to have an integrated core to power it. If I go without, it’ll have a better evolutionary path, but likely slower. Also, without an integrated core, it’s likely to have harsher restrictions as it progresses. My original flawed design used the assumption that it would gather essence from combat, which isn’t very likely.”

Sal tilted his head as he spoke. He should be relieved that he was able to make a tracker with the best materials and that it would even have an evolutionary path. The thing stopping him from making it as it was presented to him, and accepting the Rare grade, was that Doctor Ameye gave him this task as a test. If he was to make it without the core, then he would essentially be making an unreliable product and it would likely be a waste of the materials he’d been gifted.

Chatfield laughed as he propped his head up with his palm, leaning on the table with an elbow. “You need to think long-term. If this is going to be your tracker for the foreseeable future, you’ll need to future-proof it. Having something unreliable that needs to be recharged in a moment of crisis isn’t going to work. I saw that your equipment has a Synergy effect when you transformed your arms. Why don’t you Synergize the tracker with your armor? That removes the problem of adding a core, as it’ll use your gear as the power source.”

Sal shook his head and dismissed the suggestion with a wave. “That doesn’t account for essence generation. I’d end up speeding up the chances of me getting dregs again.” Sal ignored the inquisitive look that crossed Chatfield’s face. “If I was going to have a separate source of essence gathering, it would likely need to be a new set. The smartest choice would probably be a crown of some description, if I was basing it on proximity. Maybe a pendant, like Upgrade used to wear around her neck?”

He was thinking out loud as he stared into the space in front of him, wishing that Mythcrafter would just solve the problem for him.

“Well, how about thinking about it from a different angle? You need a huge surge of essence to get it evolving? Make a weapon.” Chatfield said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sal didn’t know whether it was because of the calming effect of the monocle or not, but he wasn’t opposed to the idea. It felt like a logical conclusion. While he thought about the potential ways it might work, Chatfield continued with his reasoning.

“You could forgo the integrated core on the tracker and have it Synergized with the weapon, which would mean that it’ll never run out of juice during a fight. Kill enough demons and it’ll force the evolution. Problem solved.”

Sal nodded and couldn’t find any issue with it. Quest, Barry, and now Chatfield all encouraged him to make a weapon. The only person against it was himself, and it was because of an ingrained fear of being on the front lines fighting demons. Sal had never completed a set before, but he had appraised his outfit and understood its Synergy. He hoped that would be enough to make it work.

An idle thought in the back of his head was to pair the tracker with the Rare-grade sword, but he dismissed that idea for two reasons. First was that the sword absorbed all excess essence from the user. It wouldn’t leave anything spare for the tracker. Second was the fact that it was more powerful in Anthony’s hands, and taking it from him would reduce their versatility in the inter-cohort battles to come.

With a grimace, Sal willed the gun blueprint from Quest’s office to appear beside the tracker. He needed them to be synergistic, and Mythcrafter understood immediately.

Where the tracker calculations had been slow and gradual, the hypothetical schematics for the gun went through the same steps at a lightning pace. Multiple variations appeared and self-corrected, disappearing from view in a blink. It went through dozens of possibilities before stabilizing. He slowly went through all the details to see whether it met his criteria.

Evolutionary trait, check. Synergy with the tracker concept, check. Purely powered by essence, check. That last part was something Sal realized he wanted specifically. Reloading in a fight seemed like a huge hassle, so he wanted to have it powered from internal cores.

Because the gun was a revolver, the normal method for firing was combustion. Sal wanted to replace it with essence, even if it meant the evolution requirements would be harsher.

Sal took a sip of his coffee and was surprised that it was cold. He looked up at Chatfield, almost accusingly, but all he got was a laugh.

“I’m not sure about your sense of time, but you’ve been in here for at least five hours. That coffee has been sitting there for over an hour.” Chatfield stretched as he flipped his tablet back over and glanced through the notifications on the screen.

“I had originally put aside a few hours to see you in action, but after seeing the monocle, I want to see this through. Even if it comes out at a lower grade like you’re aiming for, I think it’ll be something exceptional. Then, we’ll be able to get your feedback on the materials before we start making some prototypes. At this pace, it looks like we might have an all-nighter on our hands.”

There was no harshness in his voice, and Sal could see that he was excited at the prospect of seeing more Crafting.

Sal followed his example and withdrew his own tablet from his pocket. There were a few messages from Divinity, Hannah, and Upgrade. The first two were asking him whether he had any weekend plans, but Upgrade was asking what he was up to and if she could come in and see what was going on.

As Sal scrolled through the messages, he saw Upgrade’s patience dwindling with each subsequent message until the most recent one that threatened to break into the room and take up residence on the couch. Sal sent a quick message that she was free to join them, but that he was going to be concentrating on Crafting.

With that done, he pocketed his tablet and focused on the task at hand. The blueprint for the gun didn’t matter right now. He needed to make the tracker as his priority, and then he could use the same materials to create the gun to ensure they had good cohesion and the Synergy trait.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Sal said, and looked at Chatfield’s passive expression before clarifying. “I mean it this time.”