Humming softly to herself Tatiana leaned back in her chair and let her thoughts slowly sift through the information she possessed
Randidly shook his right hand but the annoying numbness wouldnÆt disperse Since his trip to the center of the plateau and discussion with Chulroon four weeks ago he had begun working to raise his Nether Resistance as much as possible before he returned to normal time He didnÆt truly dare to try and attack himself with that dangerous blue black triangle but unleashing the mythic rated Skill inflicted more than enough damage to push the Skill Level up to Level 53
Now with only one week remaining in his self imposed time limit Randidly was beginning to feel some extended wear from exposure to Nether And this was just from utilizing it as a weapon which proved how dangerous a substance it was Randidly had considered staying here longer but a few extra months wouldnÆt matter much to Nether Resistance Because of how the damage took an almost pre System amount of time to heal he would likely need another year in the Dungeon to show significant progress
Yet Randidly still hesitated to isolate himself for that long Part of it was keeping his mentality sharp but part of it was beginning to actively develop Erickson Steel He couldnÆt avoid this tiresome task forever Besides his growth in all areas but Engraving was slowing to a crawl It was time to stop avoiding the march of time
I hope this is fucking worth it Randidly frowned down at his hand With his brand new metallic left arm he flicked his right forearm repeatedly to restore some of the feeling back to it the unresponsive flesh
Thankfully the new arm performed admirably with an even higher articulation than the original design And although Randidly hadnÆt Engraved any Skill into it he really felt no need to do so without a specific goal The physical destructiveness of ChulroonÆs chisel was practically a broken Skill all on its own The capability of a Level 99 weapon made from a Fate lived up to the hype
Besides not Engraving now kept the option open for the future in case he encountered a problem that he couldn’t easily solve on his own
Combined with the extremely thick image of timelessness that was slowly radiating outward from the limb Randidly was immensely satisfied with how things had turned out Even if it was difficult for Randidly to do anything to improve his images at the moment he knew that the constant nurturing of the image would cause a qualitative change eventually
Plus his newfound arm had the added benefit of allowing Randidly to resume his Engraving training Engraving with a single arm was possible when he relied on Influence of the Molten Core to manipulate an item but it also split his attention in too many directions His precise control of the image he was using wavered frequently
Even with RandidlyÆs high Control he had his limits
Which in turn had made Randidly finally realize the big issue that was holding him back from improving his image Uniformity Like Mana in Engraving the level of detail in his image needed to be uniform In his enthusiastic attempts to increase the detail in his image he had painted in broad but haphazard strokes As such the image was like a poorly balanced weapon with a heavy tip
It was possible for him to grow more skilled in its usage but it was probably better to just spend some time shifting the weapon back toward balance before he learned bad habits
Therefore with his other areas of training at a plateau almost all of RandidlyÆs final days were consumed by the pursuit of Engraving
While Randidly continued to methodically move his limbs to keep from stiffening he walked out of his training area and headed East toward the plateau After walking for about ten minutes he reached the sprawling bones of the moving city that he had begun to assemble out of the pieces that Wendy had designed
Like rib bones of an ancient clockwork giant the curving metal legs and knobby rivets gleamed like silver and brass in the late afternoon light Piles of intricate gears lay stacked in containers covered by canvas overhangs to protect the pieces from the elements More than anything else the area that Randidly used for the assembly of the moving city reminded Randidly of an abandoned paleontological dig It was all deep pits dust and strange bones laying scattered about
At first Randidly was rather worried about the assembly and movement between the outside world and the Soulskill but it seemed that the restriction that his Domain placed upon people didnÆt affect items in the same way Therefore Randidly had workshops in both the Dungeon and his Soulskill so he could experiment and tinker with working pieces whenever he had time
Therefore he was rather free to assemble portions both within and without of his Soulskill However the larger the object was the more exhausting it was to move between the two realms As such Randidly had no plans to make any single piece any larger than these large legs Then he could move them between the Soulskill and outside world with reasonable ease and assemble the final product near Erickson Steel
But Randidly continued past through the towering architecture of steel and bone to another area After all today was another day that Randidly planned on throwing himself into further study of Engraving This work area was another ten minutes jog East right at the edge of the plateau Along the way Randidly politely nodded to several patrols of his Riders that were moving through the area
Not that it was really necessary Now an entire year later there was basically no hostile force remaining the Dungeon But new resources harvested from the plateau came through this area before being processed by Randidly so he couldnÆt exactly blame them for taking their jobs seriously
Finally he reached his Engraving practice ground
Here Randidly had his Riders bring him huge stones to construct a tower that stretched upward toward the sky in an approximation of the lighthouses found within his Soulskill The heavy stone building was so tall that it stretched up past the lip of the plateau and into the sky beyond Once he had the building made Randidly had used All Things Succumb Yet Time Whirls the Earth to develop a series of plans for a complex vast Engraving that would cover the surface of the tower
Even though all Randidly did was develop concepts with the Skill each use found him exhausted And the next day he would try again with a more specific image in mind and let the plans get refined just a little further In a way it felt like Randidly was working with another individual to make the final Engraving Which was slightly disturbing
Every day included a few hours that Randidly simply came before the tower and studied the plans that the ultimate Engravings version of himself had designed He examined the small models that he had made to test the viability of the designs Then using the Engraving encyclopedias as a reference Randidly furiously studied to raise his own understanding of Engraving
What was unfortunate was that improving his knowledge didnÆt truly raise his Skill Level It certainly made it easier for his Skill Level to improve but there would be no direct improvement in the Skill Level from studying As such Randidly was beginning to feel that he was improving quite a bit in terms of Engraving while his Skill Level remained completely static
He knew that he could rectify this rather quickly if he would spend a few weeks just testing his theories with repeated experiments but now this foundation building seemed more relevant to his future tasks
So with glittering emerald eyes Randidly studied Not long now
He glanced up at the towering stone pillar unadorned and smooth Soon we will have to see how well this works An emerald flaming eye as the Engraving pattern a Skill that can Level which will enable the entire city to recognize friends or foes just from looking LetÆs try to push the envelope as much as possible
Chapter 1007
RandidlyÆs mouth twisted into a grimace as his head continued to pound I knew raising the demands on All Else Succumbs would hurt but actually going through the activation of the Skill plus with the accumulated damage from the process of forcing Nether Resistance to increase in Skill Level And now