Chapter 300: Pursuit of the World Crucibles

“Weren’t those things only able to be found after killing a Kaiser?” Eric asked, looking confused for a moment.

“No,” Rory shook his head in denial. “The implication is that defeating a Kaiser will grant access to a world crucible, not that it’s the only time we can access them.”

“And we need to access them if we ever want to have a hope of beating a Kaiser?”

“Maybe,” Rory shrugged. “Perhaps if we fully clear a Kaiser’s ‘kingdom’ or whatever you want to call them, it will bring them down in scale to only a bit beyond one of the Kaiser generals. But if we’re wrong and we try to waltz in, we might end up slaughtered.”

“I don’t like being slaughtered,” Zoey said, adding her valuable insight into the conversation.

“And these world crucibles will give us the juice needed to beat them?”

“Maybe,” Rory again shrugged. “But, with that said, I don’t think we can freely abuse them once we find one.”

“Oh? Why not?” Tom asked.

“Because why would there need to be several ? My guess is we get a few uses max .”

“So, the game plan if we find one?”

“First, you,” Rory said, pointing to The Spear.

“Me?” She asked, suddenly surprised.

“The exodermal armor I made you from the Spectro Orckalite, and the inner armor that you’ve had for ages, I plan to bring them into unison, a singular piece of gear unmatched by any armor to date.”

“What about you?” Allison asked. “Your armor went kaput .”

“Sadly,” Rory sighed. “Unfortunately, I think it’s dead dead . It’s not something I can break down and recycle; it was never made of anything capable of that to begin with. I’ll hold onto it, if only for memory purposes, but I have in mind an idea for a new set of armor for myself.”

“So, fusing my armors does what exactly?”

“It’s not quite an ordinary fusion,” Rory said. “And some details are unknown until we actually find a World Crucible. Right now, the effects of your armors don’t synchronize fully. One reduces the strain on you, but you don’t use many spiritually straining techniques. The other, at least, the Spectro Orckalite set, was designed with your abilities in mind.”

“So… you don’t know what exactly it does,” Allison said.

“No,” Rory admitted. “But the concept is simple: you are the literal spearhead of our group. You have the best balance between offensive prowess, defensive strength, and scaling potential.”

“And a weapon wouldn’t be better?”

“In this case, no,” Rory shook his head. “We’re recycling significance and combining power. Maybe if you still had your old spear, sure, but that degree of interpersonal significance between a person and their weapon takes time to build up. Your original armor is the best bet.”

“If you say so,” Allison shrugged. “And that will be enough to beat a Kaiser?”

“On its own, no , but I plan for all of us to get gear upgrades, even if you’re the only one with gear affected by a World Crucible by the first Kaiser. And anyway, we have other options as well.”

Waving his arms, Rory gestured to the corpse of the fallen hydra.

“Can you all feel it?”

“Feel what?” Zoey asked.

Walking up to the corpse, Rory tapped it once, as at the same time, the World Phylactery they’d all received appeared in his left hand like a lantern held out. Instantly, the corpse disintegrated into a veritable lightshow of glittering light, which was sucked into the phylactery, which seemed almost like a lantern in its glow.

“These fuckers grant an utterly ridiculous amount of anomalous energy,” Rory said. “And, not just in the regular means, like we can fully convert them into energy.”

“Isn’t it better to make use of any parts?” Tom asked.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Rory said. “Think about it: the faster we can get a network of the anomalous spires set up, the faster we can generate it freely, the faster we can get more spires, the faster we can mass buy any shop materials.”

“Do you think it’s infinite?” Allison asked.

“Probably not,” Rory answered with a shake of his head. “It would make gaining rare exotic materials far too easy. But another thing to consider. Oscuro .”

“Oh,” Allison’s eyes suddenly widened. “That’s right, that should work here as well.”

“Kinda lost,” Eric said, looking between them.

“Oscuro was created as a result of The Spear’s major law reward, a dimension that can be entered once every ten years, planet-dependent, and every hundred years regardless of what planet. We take advantage of that to take a ‘break’ from here, loot the place for whatever it's worth, scamper on back, and we’ve got ourselves a treasure horde of potentially powerful materials to use alongside anything from here as well. We build up, arm ourselves, and take the fight to the Kaisers.”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit for the authentic version.

“And if the Kaisers become ‘easy’ to beat, we can make it more difficult by skipping generals, and hopefully increasing the end reward,” Allison finished for Rory, the two sharing a smile for a brief instant.

“A regular old video game,” Tom said.

“I never played any video games,” Allison said with a shrug.

“Not too surprised there, Ms. Trauma,” Eric chuckled as Zoey glared at the man.

“The glare means nothing to me, Ms. I-don’t-have-any-hands,” Eric added after a moment.

“Anything else to go over?” Tom interrupted.

“Probably worth another look at the shop now that we've fully -fully cleared this region,” Rory said. “Otherwise, not much else. We can rest, recover, and then move on to our plan to split the group in two, just now with the intent of finding any World Crucibles with greater urgency.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for?” Eric asked with a greedy look in his eyes.

“And?” The group asked as Rory walked out of the shop located within the fortress of base Null.

“There was indeed something new.”

“Being?”

“This,” Rory said, opening his hand as the group looked at him strangely.

“What…. What is it?” Eric finally asked.

“A shell,” Rory said.

“Like… an egg shell?” Tom asked after a moment,

“Yep,” Rory said.

“So, what’s the plan? And how many beads did it cost?”

“More than you’d like to know, less than it could have been,” Rory said evasively.

“Alright, and the plan with it?” Allison asked.

Rory turned before pointing directly at Eric.

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you,” Rory said. “How would you like a familiar of some sort?”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, you can examine it if you want-”

“Nah, too much reading.”

“But it’s got significance revolving around serpents and venom. I think if I pair it with a cracked samsara seed or two, I might be able to get you a little friend.”

“And why me?” Eric said, seeming wary.

“You’re the champion of the Founders, are you not? Call it your reward for being the one to finish off the hydra.”

“Well, I won’t say no,” Eric said. “How long will this take?”

“Shockingly, not long,” Rory said. “Primarily because it’s already primed for this exact purpose. I could probably have refocused for another use, but why bother fighting it?”

“It won’t hatch into a snake, will it?”

“No idea,” Rory said with a shrug. “Does it really matter?”

Eric was silent for several seconds before sighing.

“…I’d rather a rabbit, but whatever, I guess.”

True to his word, the process for ‘preparing’ the empty eggshell wasn’t all that difficult. Setting up a quick ritual circle composed of items such as a samsara seed, a pearlescent core, and other conceptually aligned items, Rory broke down the items within through the help of the bound space. The final result was the samsara seeds ‘fusing’ together with the pearlescent core as the other items broke down.

Nodding to himself, Rory slipped the now shrunken samsara seed into the empty black shell before finally resealing the thing off with a small ‘patch’ of silica-like gem dust. Firing it up, it hardened upon the shell, now having a small black glass patch.

“And here you go,” Rory said as he handed the egg over to the Rogue.

“Thanks… I guess? What exactly am I supposed to do with it now?”

“Just feed it bits of your aura and anomalous energy, and presto, it should hatch into... Something. Eventually.”

“Good to hear,” Eric said awkwardly. The group had split into two: The Rogue, The Monk, and The Vanguard stood to the side, while Rory and The Spear stood opposite. “Well, uh, good luck?”

Perhaps it was because the man wasn’t used to handling just being normal that he suddenly found himself awkwardly floundering before sticking his hand out.

Don’t. Resist the temptation to laugh.

Keeping his face neutral, Rory stuck his hand out, shaking the Rogue’s hand. “Good luck.”

The journey to the next bordering region took over four weeks from the center of Lernaean’s region, which, given how fast both Rory and Allison were, spoke to just how large the regions were.

It was a surprisingly ‘boring’ adventure. Which is to say, every single day they fought swarms of powerful alpha variants leading packs of lesser monsters. Still, with two Founders working in conjunction, they were never more threatening than moderate exercise.

Crossing into the new region felt… almost anticlimactic. After weeks of travel and very little actual conversation, the two stopped, suddenly feeling a tension in the latent pneuma surrounding them, rigid and unyielding.

“This must be it,” Rory said, flexing his intent as he moved to shift the sandy soil beneath his feet with Earth Soul, feeling it resisting once again.

“How do you want to start this?” Allison asked. “Find a territory alpha right away, slaughter it, and move on from there?”

“It might be better to find a suitable location for a base, establish a shop, and then proceed from there.”

The Spear eyed him for a moment before shrugging.

“Sure, if you think that’s the best idea.”

“Sure?” Rory frowned. “Why are you saying it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like… that,” Rory gestured. “Like you don’t mean it.”

“Don’t tell me if I mean it or not,” The Spear said, narrowing her eyes.

“Well, you clearly aren’t in agreement.”

“See, you’re doing it again, telling me what I’m thinking.”

The two glared daggers at each other until an explosion of noise rang out; they seemed to vanish before reappearing amid a clash of weapons.

“Oh, how absolutely mature of you,” Rory growled through clenched teeth.

“Says you ,” Allison shot back. Perhaps because of the conversation, or the fact that it was far from a true clash, her heartbeat had only picked up a few beats, a barely noticeable increase.

“Because you were about to take it out on me like a child !”

“I wasn’t going to do anything , but then you got all tense and shit!”

Spending the next few minutes brawling, the two found themselves in a tangle of limbs.

“What is your problem ?” Rory shouted, headbutting the woman as she put distance between the two of them.

“ You! ” She shouted before headbutting him back.

Compared to the legendary clash that nearly every person on Aelia had viewed, the current scuffle was like two children fighting over a toy.

“ Me? Everything that happened was your fault.”

“It wasn’t my god damn fault ,” Allison shot back. “You were the one harboring a Sensen!”

“Yeah, my daughter , who has absolutely no relation to the past, but your friend decided to freak the fuck out!”

“Keep his god damn name out of your mouth!” Allison seethed.

“I never said his damn name ,” Rory growled back. Brawling as they had been, Rory had found himself on the back foot, pushed up against a cliff face, their faces inches from each other. “Anyway, make me .”

The thing about adrenaline, about emotions running high, was that some things began to bleed together . Fear and love could be conflated, just as rage and passion could as well.

To utterly no one's surprise, or no one’s surprise had they been there to witness it, in one moment they two had been at each other's throats.

Next, they were at each other's throats .

Looking back, Rory couldn’t really remember how it had happened, mind blanking, but as his brain rebooted, to his surprise, he found himself locked into a rather fiery kiss with the woman.

There were a lot of things that could have gone through his mind, but only one single thought dominated his mind instead.

Nifty.