John could have spied on the gathering, like he could have spied on so many other things, but decided not to. Trust was fundamental and he would not violate what was put in him by listening to things he was specifically asked not to witness. Which meant he now had some time to kill on his own.

‘No idea how much longer they will talk,’ he thought once outside the palace, checking his clock. He had only had 15 minutes with Nathalia. It felt like way too little. ‘Aaaaaah, I wanna hold her and talk and I want to massage her before screwing her brains out of her sexy body!’ he screamed mentally, while ruffling up his own hair. Being in love with a woman that wasn’t around and he couldn’t talk to whenever he wanted was hell. ‘People in the past must have had a giant amount of faith…’ he realized, given that people could be away on wars or trading missions for years, with nothing but unreliable letters to communicate.

Even John’s current situation with Nathalia was better than that. Maybe he shouldn’t complain that much. Just three generations ago, people were loaded up on boats and shipped across the ocean to die in Europe at his age.

‘I keep thinking that if I were to anger just the wrong person I wouldn’t get away unscathed,’ he philosophized the time away. ‘Compared to the average Abyssal though…’ He suddenly had a number of images flash through his mind. The trench and open warfare in Warsaw. Himself slaughtering the mind-annihilated crew of the landing boats when Bearings attacked Liberty Island. The sight of Sigmund cleaving numerous people apart with one swing of his sword, Tietan.

Spilled guts, a ravaged landscape, blood everywhere, the stench of the battlefield and the sounds. The squelching and screaming and whimpering, overlapping with all the cracking and rumbling and burning. Rather than disgusted, he felt a bit fascinated by that part. He took no pleasure in seeing those images again, but he wasn’t dominated by their appearance either.

“Yeah, think I got it better than those who don’t even have a fighting chance,” John mumbled and pushed his unneeded equipment back into his inventory. ‘Thinking of Tietan…’ It was still early and he didn’t have anything immediate to do. Prime time to get something on the way he wanted anyway. He dropped Rave a quick text message so everyone knew where he was when they were done, not daring to go through Aclysia in case of information backflow.

Then he got moving. Walking anywhere truly alone bore a mild level of risk, but with Particle Skin existing, he was more confident than ever that he could stave off any assassination attempts until teleportation skills were used. If he even needed the help.

First, he went back into the building, walked by the room his harem was currently holding a conference in, then reached the middle of the ground floor where a spiralling staircase led up and down. He could have taken the elevator instead, but the stairs were faster. His movements reverberated on the metal steps, as he walked downwards.

The eleven-tipped star fort that his palace stood on was, for the most part, a thing of solid, white stone. This was one of the many adjustments he had made to it. Really, only the shape of the old thing remained. Eventually, he planned to make use of all of this room down there. As it was, he didn’t even fill the second story of his palace properly. That floor alone was 1600 square metres and several of the rooms had been left empty and sealed up to use at some later point. The star fort was the base that palace stood on, and several times bigger as such. Claiming all of that area would create such a massive complex that John had no idea how he would ever fill all of it.

Okay, he had a few ideas, but none of them were realistic with his current standing.

Instead, there was only one room down there right now, holding the Guild Heart. The blue sphere was, as always, glowing, with three golden rings circling around the core. Since he had gotten it, it had grown tremendously in size, now being as tall as him, even without hovering above its oval socket of valuable looking metals.

‘Alright, north eastern door…’ John thought and looked around. There were eleven doors along the walls, spaced out evenly, except for the one side of the fort that had just one, rather than two, spikes between its corners. Each door was heavily fortified and could only be opened through physical means. As much as John trusted Scarlett to write secure programs, programs could still be hacked and, worse, potentially detected at a distance. Be it through connections to something or electrical discharge.

He wanted as few people to know where the Guild Heart was as possible. If it was destroyed, most functions inside the Guild Hall would shut down. Until it was repaired, they would have to make due with manual mana influx, and John wasn’t even sure if that would work. The Guild Heart was not just the energy source but also distribution system, odds were that nothing would be powered even if they had the mana.

Every door had three levers that were somewhat camouflaged as flat decorations. First step to open a door was to pull them into an upright position. A brute strength test that Scarlett, for example, failed at. John guessed that nobody below 50 Strength would be able to even start the whole thing.

Once the levers were upright, they revealed a circular number display at the top of their raw iron length. The tip was twistable, and the number snapped along 0-9 by an analogue mechanic. The correct combination of numbers had to be put into the right order. It wasn’t any sort of reference to anything John had or liked either, just a three number combination out of a randomizer, different for each door. Then the three levers had to be pushed back down in the correct order before the three-inch-thick door revealed a doorknob with a keyhole that John could then use to properly open the door. The key was the same for all doors, the one easy thing about the whole process.

That whole ordeal gave him access to a dark tunnel. Confidently, he stepped through the pitch black. Behind him, the mechanisms of the door reset with a number of clicks. If he had failed to remember any of the steps correctly, it would have sealed and only allowed a new try with a separate reset code for the levers or after 24 hours.

Perhaps a bit overdesigned, but John didn’t like to take chances. He would love to upgrade the doors to a better material, but even Baelementium in those amounts was a bit hard to come by. For the moment, it was a blend of numerous lesser magical metals.

The tunnel eventually led him to another door that was a one-way window, enchanted to look like a stone wall from the outside. Listening for any steps, John opened that door after he was sure nobody was around. Then he was in the semi-public tunnels that allowed people to walk through rather than around the spikes of the fortress, as well as access the staircase that led up top and the common access route to John’s palace.

‘Alright, that all still works,’ John thought, satisfied. The route was only slightly shorter and way more of a hassle, so he wasn’t in the habit of taking it. As there were two days of festivals on his island, though, he wanted to be sure all the security measures were still in perfect condition. Now he stood in front of a crossroads, left and right would lead him out, forwards to the staircase/elevator that led to the grass-covered roof of the fortress.

He turned right and went outside.

Music and laughter filled his ears from the distance. The majority of activities were held down south, but even in the Commercial District, some fun was had. A band played music he more commonly associated with taverns and numerous workers were taking an extended break to talk, eat some free barbeque and flirt with the attractive harp player.

A few people recognized John. Well, all people that looked in his direction recognized John, but only a few made as much as the attempt to talk to him. Most of them were stopped before they got to him, friendly fellow festival visitors informing one another of John’s request for relative privacy during the event. Whenever someone missed it, John managed to dissuade them from any lengthy talks with a smile and a few warm sentences. Worst case, he had to give an autograph. Giving an autograph felt super weird.

A few people were distracted from his face long enough to look at the red lines on his arm. His Lorylim scars had been largely ignored by people so far. John assumed that the average joe failed to identify them as what they truly were, given how they looked on regular humans, like the blacksmith in front of him. He could have tried to hide it, but photos with him having them from the cruise had already been in circulation by the time he had conquered New York. He wasn’t lying about their origin, but unless he was asked, he was happy to omit that information in front of the public. Someday he would talk about it, when there was nothing else to deal with.

‘I wonder if some hot girl is going to ask me to sign their underwear or boobs or something,’ the Gamer thought, trying to challenge fate. No such luck though. He got the rest of the way to the Harbour with only shouts of ‘Happy Birthday, Mister President’ and the like coming his way. Once there, he grabbed a jetski and drove off.

His target wasn’t terribly far away, especially not when moving across water at over a hundred kilometres per hour. The phone in his pocket vibrated when he was barely out on the water, and once he landed, he read the message from Rave that the meeting was over. He hadn’t been willing to check his messages while driving.

‘Well, that lasted a lot longer than expected,’ he thought. In total, the vision must have gone on for 30 to 40 minutes. John could have talked with Nathalia for a little while more, but things were as they were. He left the jetski where it was and walked off the artificial, or at least heavily modified, beach onto the green area inland. On the real-world side of things, this area was a golf club. Previous to Fusion’s arrival, the parking lot further away had been a business meeting place for the usually shady individuals. There had been a long-term barrier at the very tip of the golf club area that was now integrated into the Hudson Barrier.

The effect on the landscape was quite interesting. Where the previous barrier had been, the copied plants had been left to foster for a long while. It was like somebody had taken a ruler and drawn a line through the lawn, on one side the grass had been left to grow wild for years, on the other it still had the resemblance of controlled growth. There were a number of other visual effects along that line, but John didn’t care to look around too much.

More important were the structures around. A twenty-metre-tall furnace made from some sort of glass stood cold, blue swirls inside its translucent walls changing their shape at a snail’s pace. The contraption was connected to a ruined network of paths that led down to the water. It hadn’t been repaired since John’s last visit.

The two-story house, standing a bit further away, had been, however. The hole in the wall had been patched with fresh red bricks, which made it stand out particularly, given the layer of soot that had made the rest of the walls a greyish colour. There were some smaller, normal looking forges around, one attached to the house, another two in the open, with the usual equipment of furnace, anvil and basin, among other things.

A woman was working on one of those anvils, overseen by a surprisingly thin-armed man. One he had seen previously, the other was new, neither were why he was there. He approached and they continued to work, although they had clearly noticed him already, as evident by their greeting.

“The master is in the house,” is all he was told, and he thus spared himself the question and left them to their work, since they seemed to be focused on that. John took a large step over a black boulder that he knew for a fact to be a coal elemental in reality.

Quite certain that knocking was an unnecessary courtesy, he walked into the house. The door looked like it would scream out, but the hinges were well-oiled, so the only sounds were his footsteps and the creaking of a rocking chair. The room was bleak, dominated by greyed out, wooden and metal shelves, lined with all sorts of mystical forging materials.

The person in the chair was hideously disfigured. His naked upper body was thin; even though John knew it to command surprising physical power, it looked frail. The scars didn’t help. They were oddly linear next to each other and covered every inch of him, save for the skin above his heart, as if he had been thoroughly ploughed through with barbed hooks. The nose was entirely gone, as were the ears, and the lips didn’t look the part anymore, although they did hide his teeth still.

John couldn’t help but scratch his right arm, the bones starting to itch. This seemed to happen every time he was around either the source of the scars that arm bore or someone who had been marked by the same horrific creatures. The man had been covered by a Lorylim once. The true miracle was that he was still alive. His name was Marathyu, he was the smith of both Aclysia’s cleaver Marath and Sigmund’s sword Tietan.

“I SAID – to – let – me – DIE!” he screamed throwing a wet washing cloth in John’s direction. The Gamer caught it rather easily, then put it away. It was reeking. Largely left without sweat glands, the blacksmith must have been using it to clean himself and regulate his body temperature in the summer heat.

“You never said anything to me, at least never something that clear,” John retorted, and his voice caught the blacksmith’s attention more than his presence had. “How did you know the dream?” It was a cryptic question, but one John had been wondering about for a while. Last time he had seen Marathyu, the mad blacksmith had mumbled something that had been strangely similar to the story John had told Aclysia during the cruise, the one about a smith that became a warrior guided by a crow.

Sadly, the answer he got was completely unusable. “Seeing and mumbling things are clarities you cannot fathom.”

John waited for something more, but that was it. Maybe there was something in there, but he wasn’t there to crack riddles. Either he had accidentally spoken a minor prophecy back then, it was a coincidence, or the Gamer getting connected to the Lorylim, in a minor fashion, shortly after telling that story had caused it to ripple through some sort of network. He had hoped to confirm one of those theories, but it wasn’t an urgent matter.

A much better question was the one he had next. “Do you still forge?”

“HA!” Marathyu let out one laugh, threw himself against the back of his chair and caused it to topple over backwards. Once he was on the ground, he broke out into proper laughter, shrill and unnatural. Unlike with Eliza, John didn’t find any beauty in that and he also had no attractive woman to compensate him for the painful spikes. Just an insane genius.

Letting the man continue, John accessed the Guild Bank. Since it had been upgraded to Tier 2, it could be accessed in barriers adjacent to the Guild Hall. In other words, anywhere in the Hudson Barrier. He pulled out a bag, opened it, and fished one piece of its contents out. The moment he threw it onto the ground next to Marathyu, the blacksmith stopped laughing and instead listened to the sound the small piece of metal made when it bounced off the floor.

To John, it sounded like a regular knife hit the ground, but for the scarred man, it must have been some sort of tragedy, as tears welled up in his eyes and he sat up. His hands approached the object on the floor.

It was about a finger long and twice as thick. Blackened, the metal retained some of its original silver hue in the way light reflected on it. One side of it was even, a wonderfully, slightly diagonal edge, the others were more jagged and cracked.

It was a splinter of Tietan. The black Mithril sword had had one of its two blades shattered by Thana and John had had those splinters gathered and given to him by the Hidden Tradition. To be more correct, he had requested it and they seemed happy to be rid of them. According to Ahanu, his people found blackened Mithril to be a perversion of nature.

John understood the sentiment, even if he didn’t share the adversity.

“My… master craft…” The smith took the shard in two hands, uncaring that its unfathomably keen edge immediately drew blood from his palm. John carefully put the bag he had the remaining shard in on the floor. One careless move and it too would be sliced open. “It’s broken… it’s brooookeeeeen!”

“It was a great weapon,” John complimented, having not aimed at quite this emotional a response, just at getting the smith’s attention. Good thing that he had a lot of patience for dealing with unstable people. “Do you still forge?” he asked again, firmly. “Or should I leave you alone to die?”

“No heaven, no hell, no sleep, for those who haven’t made the perfect weapon. No heaven, no hell, no sleep, for those who are,” Marathyu grumbled and looked up to John with his dark eyes. They were clear, although not exactly normal. John could talk to him now. “I can offer you nothing. With these little shards, I can make nothing of value. Even if I could, I have no breath of the fire of destruction left to melt it with. You might as well go to a normal Mithril smith and have them use… Imizihn,” he spat that out with utter disgust, as if the usage of that material (whatever it was) was an insult to the very concept of his craft.

“No breath of the fire of destruction, huh?” John mumbled. Since that was Nathalia’s title, it must have been tangled up with her somehow. If there was someone in this world that had access to that material, it would be himself or the Horned Rat. “Describe it to me, what is that?”

“Ash, a mixture of materials seared by the goddess’ flame breath,” Marathyu answer. “Mixed with coal and other things, it unleashes its remaining magic and allows the heat on the magical level to match that on the physical. Mithril doesn’t like to change its shape, you have to force it.”

John thought about that explanation for a few seconds. “Is it the ash itself or the magic that you require?” he asked and then reached into his inventory again to retrieve the refined Oblivium. The blacksmith began to quiver with his entire body when he saw the scorched black metal. He raised his hands ever so slowly and John offered it for inspection. Shortly before touching it, the blacksmith pulled away. Then he moved back in. It was the kind of hesitation a priest would display before touching something sacred.

“What… is this…?” he asked, turning the ingot in his hands. By the looks of it, he was succeeding in reading the properties of the metal from its surface alone. “The fire of destruction’s touch burns intensely… yes… yes, with this, I could do more… so much more than just ash…”

That was exactly what John wanted to hear, and he pulled out the Mithril ore, normal and dragonblessed, he had as well. Although these also surprised the blacksmith, he was almost disinterested by comparison to Oblivium. “Can you forge me a weapon with this?” John asked, it was more a question of quantity than quality or interest. The materials were good and Marathyu clearly interested, but it may not have been enough.

He had one kilogram of Oblivium, a total of 45 kilogram of Mithril ore and about 2-kilogram worth of blade shards. He knew, as a matter of fact, that this weight would change along the forging process, but he still had no idea if this was enough at the start. The most important question was how much actual Mithril could be won from the ore.

“Yes… yes… more than one spear…” John hadn’t even mentioned he wanted a spear yet, but he left the smith to ramble on, “…there is more I can do with this… not infinitely more, but maybe another small weapon or… I can…” Marathyu picked up the shard of Tietan. “Bring me the little sister of this dead blade. I thought her to be the lesser product, but I need to hear Marath sing again to hear what I knew not and… you have more of this...” the blacksmith tapped on the Oblivium ingot. “I can smell it on you! Show it to me, show it, I need to see more!”

John obliged the request, but with a clear level of caution. He showed the Necklace of the World Ender to the smith, then the rings. He didn’t seem interested in either, waving them away after making a number of comments about these materials being wasted in these deathless states. When it came to Purgatory, he almost had the same reaction, but then hesitated and ripped that armguard from John’s hand.

The only reason why John didn’t react to that with preparing an Arc Lance was that Purgatory had the Indestructible Attribute. If anyone had a way to disable that, he expected it to be someone like Marathyu, but it would have to take a little bit more effort than this room allowed. If he would start something remotely looking like a spell or ritual, John was ready to kick the smith’s teeth in. The Gamer wouldn’t take any risks with Purgatory. With the exception of the Mandala Sphere, it was his strongest piece of equipment.

Aside from inspecting it, however, Marathyu didn’t do anything. He offered it back to John. “Show me its true form,” he requested, and John strapped on the armguard to oblige. He activated it and the Gamer’s Clothes enchantment of his new suit/shirt did something interesting, the short sleeve extending downwards.

As the flames of the transformation died down, it became clear that the two items had melded. Not fused, not completely anyway. The dragon claw still ended at the elbow, but the transition to the soft fabric of the Suit of the Chosen was seamless. A few scales even covered the sleeve above the elbow, although none reached the shoulder. His whole left arm was covered under the two items.

It gave him an asymmetrical look, with his right arm still bare, the red, tattoo-like scars, plainly visible. Not that that was too important.

Marathyu nodded three times, then gestured for John to change back. “I can improve that as well. Bring me Marath and its wielder and I can begin working.”

“Can’t you just start right now?” John asked. Marathyu smiled like a friendly grandpa, a deeply displaced look on his ravaged face.