Chapter 57 – Construct

Name	Blathnaid McClean
Alias	None
Class	Support
Profession	First-Year Student, Quest Academy (Silver Cohort)
Rank	Guild Association: None Hunter Bureau: Current Rank | 0 Quest Academy: Current Rank | 391st
Accreditations	Challenge Crests: 0 Certifications: 0
Ability	Skill Name: Construct | Rating: III Skill Category: Invention Skill Mastery: 100% Skill Efficiency: 37% Progress to Next Rating: 92% Evolutionary Capability: Yes Potential Cap: X Natural Synergy: Concept | Rarecraft | Appraisal
Essence	Essence Type: Invention Essence Gates: 60 Essence Absorption Rate: 22% Essence Control: 14% Essence Refinement: 61% Essence Calibration: 43%
Physical	Strength Rating: I Mobility Rating: III Speed Rating: III Fitness Rating: III Current Status Effects: Injuries: None Illnesses: None
Reputation	Bastion Families: Unknown Doom Society: Unknown Guild Association: Unknown Hunter Bureau: Unknown Quest Academy: Known
Threat Level	Analyzed Equipment: I Analyzed Martial Arts: N/A Analyzed Movements: N/A Analyzed Techniques: N/A Analyzed Body Composition: II
Wealth	Q-Credit: 1,486

Sal frowned as he looked at Blathnaid’s stats. His visor flashed with more information and as he scrolled through it, he found himself feeling sorry for her. Her best stats were in the physical category, as her ability and essence proficiencies were really low. Sal glanced back at her ability and saw that it was Construct. He couldn’t recall having seen it before and focused on it to see whether the visor would give him more context.

“You okay there, Sal?” Blathnaid asked with a concerned expression.

She stood beside Upgrade, and it looked like their small talk had run its course.

Upgrade smiled as she shook her head. “He’s using his visor to check you out. He hasn’t learned etiquette on asking permission first.”

Her tone was lighthearted, so Sal didn’t have to worry about having accidentally offended her. Blathnaid, on the other hand, was unashamedly curious. In less than a second, she was up close and staring at the tracker.

“What can you see with it? Is it Appraising my uniform or something?” The excitement was clear in her voice, and Sal laughed.

He lifted it off his head and presented it to her. “See for yourself! It uses Analysis to display loads of stats about people.”

He didn’t want Blathnaid to feel uncomfortable and showed her what it did. She was more than happy to try it on, but only after a lot of smoothing back her hair. When that failed, she stood beside Upgrade and asked her to put it on her head. Upgrade expertly wove a braid with Blathnaid’s brown hair.

When she placed the tracker on her face, he wondered what she would see.

“Ah!” Blathnaid gasped as her exposed eye widened. Before he could ask what she saw, she turned to look at Upgrade and the result was way more dramatic. “You’ve got so many accreditations! Wait, I’m sorry for looking!” Blathnaid’s hand came up to block her view from Upgrade, who just laughed.

“I don’t mind. What do you think of it? Amazing, isn’t it?” Upgrade asked with a smile, and Blathnaid nodded as she looked around the room.

She wandered for a bit, inspecting the furniture and her own clothing before her eyes caught sight of the blueprint on the table.

“Whoa…” Blathnaid’s voice became almost like a whisper. “This is cheating.” She looked up at Sal with a half accusatory stare. “Like, I can see everything I’d need to make this without a deconstruction.”

Sal’s ears perked up. Was this something to do with her ability? He moved closer to the blueprint and gestured at it. “You’re seeing the same breakdown of how to make it? The Mythcrafter ability isn’t in the visor, so you should only be seeing the drawing itself.”

Blathnaid shook her head as she gestured at the chest piece drawing. “My ability is Construct, which allows me to assemble things. When I break things down, my ability remembers the pattern and I can recreate it with the same materials. It takes effort, though, and a lot of essence, but I really enjoy it. This, though…” She tapped the drawing. “Is skipping the first step. The tracker is showing me how I can construct this with just my essence and materials—I don’t need to have deconstructed it first.”

Upgrade smiled as she joined them at the table. “You’re selling yourself short there, Blathnaid. Construct is a lot more powerful than that.”

Sal looked between them and realized that this information was also news to Blathnaid, who stared at Upgrade in confusion. It wasn’t that she was being modest; she genuinely didn’t understand what the Crafting lecturer was talking about.

When Upgrade met Blathnaid’s eyes, she frowned in disbelief. “You know that you can just create things with raw materials when you have the pattern, right? There’s no need to create the individual components.”

Blathnaid’s first instinct was to laugh, but it died away when she realized that Upgrade wasn’t joking. Her brow furrowed as she shook her head. “I think you’re confusing it with another ability, maybe? If I have the pattern and the right cuts of material, I can assemble it. I couldn’t just put my hands on a bolt of cloth and turn it into a jacket. That would be crazy!”

Upgrade’s expression softened. “Have you ever tried?”

Blathnaid’s last remnants of composure withered away. She looked to Sal for backup, but he shrugged uselessly.

“Why don’t you try?”

Blathnaid was about to say something when Upgrade raised a hand to interrupt her. “Nope. Whatever misbelief you’re about to spout, I don’t want to hear it. Crafters learn things by experimentation, so wait here.” Upgrade pointed at her as she spoke. “I’m going to get a few things for us to test this out, understood?”

Blathnaid nodded and stood awkwardly as Upgrade tapped her card against the door and exited the room.

A moment of silence passed before Blathnaid whispered in Sal’s direction. “Is she usually this scary?”

Sal snorted. “This is nothing. You never want to see her when she’s scary.”

Blathnaid laughed as she sat on one of the nearby stools. Putting her hand on the edge of the table, she pulled at it and spun herself around on the top of the stool.

“So, did you find a team yet? There’s not much time left before we have to submit them.” She reached into her trouser pocket to produce her tablet. “I can never remember their names, but they seem pretty competent. I’m their Support, obviously.”

Blathnaid’s expression crunched as she squinted at the text on the screen. “Juan Clarke is our Offense. He’s super strong and apparently just punches the shit out of things. Seemed like a nice guy, but everything around him breaks. He sat down in the canteen and you’d swear the chair reacted like it was an attack.”

Sal couldn’t imagine what it would be like to try to control a physical-based ability like that. Speed was one thing, but strength…you’d probably end up mangling every door handle you tried to pull.

Blathnaid continued with her list. “Our Defense is another guy, from the Purple cohort, and his name was weird…ah, Richdolphus Ironblood! Goes by Rich, which is thankfully much easier to remember. Same for Saccade Croix…goes by Cade. He’s super nice and is our Healer from the Black cohort.”

Sal didn’t recognize any of the names and really hoped that Blathnaid had managed to find a decent team. If they dragged her down, there wouldn’t be much he could do to keep her from relegation at the end of the semester.

“What about your Controller? Anyone good?”

Blathnaid nodded, a wry grin tugging at her lips. “Yeah, he’s the one who put the team together. Body Manipulator called Darren Lenihan, but everyone calls him Dazzler. His team was at the top of the tournament, and he had already picked out most of the team. I’m super lucky they even considered me, to be honest. You should have seen my face when they approached me! I thought they wanted Barry.”

A knot formed in Sal’s stomach. Darren Lenihan was the name of the Controller Bastion was looking to recruit, and he had been at a couple of meetings with them already. The question was whether Darren was a threat to Blathnaid right now, or whether it would be fine going forward. Blathnaid didn’t know anything about the Bastion threat at the academy.

Dragging her finger along the screen, Blathnaid read out more names. “Barry’s team also managed to get a Healer. Girl called Graya Moon, think she’s in a relationship with my Healer, Cade.” She stopped abruptly as though she had an epiphany. “Two Healers in a relationship…do you think their kids would become super-Healers?”

Sal laughed, which was enough for Blathnaid to dismiss the thought and return to the list.

“Kellen Balistae from the Black cohort. Barry referred to him as a walking human shield, but I think Kellen is down as their Offense class? There was a guy with a crafted guitar, Ogden. No idea what he does, but he’s apparently a Support. Barry didn’t look too fond of him. Their Defense is a guy called Neb Ursa—he has an ability similar to Sinclair, where he can turn into a bear!”

Sal shook his head at hearing all the names. Blathnaid’s team sounded more promising if the names were anything to go by, and it was good that both teams had a dedicated Healer. Sal was also happy that Barry managed to get the Controller role on his team. If that Ogden guy was down as their Support, Barry had secured Controller.

“Hope I’m not interrupting?” Upgrade proclaimed from the door as she carried half a dozen wound bolts of fabric under one arm and a small container of metal studs and zippers in the other.

Blathnaid looked up from her tablet, and Sal got to see in real time how her eyes lit up in excitement at the materials, and how the anxiety crashed through as she realized what was about to happen.

Upgrade laughed. “Don’t go making faces like that or I’ll end up thinking I’m the bad guy here.”

Blathnaid nodded and got to her feet, stepping back so Upgrade could deposit the materials on the blueprint table.

Sal was happy to see that Upgrade placed everything around his sketch, rather than dumping it directly on top of it.

When everything was arranged, Upgrade smiled at Blathnaid. “I want you to look at the blueprint, or pattern. Whatever you want to call it. Focus on it and imagine that the materials here are the exact components you need. Don’t think about anything else, okay?”

Blathnaid looked at them apprehensively as she took a step forward, but Upgrade shook her head and moved in front of her. Blathnaid was clearly unprepared for Upgrade to grasp her shoulders, as she gasped.

Upgrade gave her a reassuring smile. “Trust me, I overthink everything too. I always need to make everything perfect, so I understand exactly what gears are turning in your brain right now. If nothing happens, then at least we’ll know and I’ll drop the topic. Sound good?”

Blathnaid nodded and a small smile found its way onto her lips. She shot a look over to Sal, who gave her a thumbs-up in response. Upgrade released Blathnaid’s shoulders and moved around the table to give her more space. There was still an element of hesitation, but Blathnaid did as she was instructed and focused her ability.

Sal activated his Skill Master ability and watched as Blathnaid’s weave ignited with essence. He almost had to do a double take when he saw the absolute clusterfuck of knots in her ability. It was practically impossible to see a single straight line that wasn’t somehow mangled. Sal desperately wished he had his visor on to see how many of them could be undone safely. He couldn’t imagine how Blathnaid had been managing to live with her ability in such a state.

The inspection that he had done on her before was much more impressive now that he had the context of what it looked like. It also felt like an important lesson in a way, that if he had trusted in the visor, he likely would have assumed that Blathnaid had no real shot of getting much stronger. Sal sighed as he deactivated his ability. He needed to find a way to calibrate the visor to his Skill Master ability, to get a better representation of what could be improved with his power.

Blathnaid winced as she drew her hands back from the materials. Sal was going to say something encouraging, but Upgrade stopped him by giving him a slight nudge with her elbow. Without a word from them, Blathnaid tried again. Her expression was one of hyper-focus, and Sal saw a slight shake in her arms as she gave it her all.

The moment stretched on forever, with Sal realizing how much time had passed when he saw the beads of sweat trickling down Blathnaid’s forehead. He glanced at Upgrade as if to ask permission to stop Blathnaid from continuing, but Upgrade shook her head.

Then, slowly but surely, a dull light appeared at the center of the table. Sal looked at Blathnaid, but there were no emotions present, only focus.

Upgrade smiled broadly as she leaned in close to Sal, her voice a barely audible whisper. “Best. Lecturer. Ever.”

Sal smiled but was mostly interested in what was happening on the desk. He couldn’t see clearly because the blueprint desks were angled upward on the side farthest from the seat. It gave easier access when sketching larger projects. All they could see was a light illuminating Blathnaid.

Another few moments of awkward silence followed before Blathnaid’s hands moved. She was still in a state of complete focus, and Sal wondered whether that was how he looked when he had the monocle equipped. Sal walked quietly to one side of the desk to get a better vantage point and Upgrade did the same on the other side, both being careful not to disrupt Blathnaid’s flow.

Sal was surprised to see that the entirety of the materials was glowing and that Blathnaid pulled tufts of the illuminated cloth and massaged it between her hands. She pulled it in different directions and stretched it out, but Sal couldn’t make out any of the details. It looked like she was constantly pawing at a ball of light. It went on for another five to ten minutes before Sal could discern some of the shapes.

No matter what way he tried to imagine it, the balls of light weren’t big enough to be a piece of equipment. Did that mean she had failed? He looked over to Upgrade to see whether she had any idea what was going on, and to his surprise, she was beaming at Blathnaid’s progress. Sal tried to understand what it was that he wasn’t seeing, but even activating his Appraisal ability gave him no suggestions. Mythcrafter also had nothing to report, and without his visor equipped, Sal was left to wait for the final verdict.

That verdict ended up taking close to an hour to arrive, but Sal didn’t mind. It was genuinely fascinating to watch Blathnaid work. The downside was how much of an impact it was having on her body. There were times she had to stop mid-process to catch her breath, or when her hands shook uncontrollably. Sal was certain that tears were forming at the edges of her eyes, and it killed him to watch her suffer in pain. As soon as he got the visor back from her, he would find a way to alleviate some of the pressure from her ability. With what looked like a hundred knots in that tangled ball of a weave, he’d find something that would make her life easier.

And then, Blathnaid finished. With a step back, she looked at the glowing cube in front of her and staggered back onto the awaiting stool. She missed the seat and lurched to the right, but Upgrade caught her before she fell.

Sal was at a complete loss for words as the glowing stopped and his eyes appraised her results.