Universe's End

Anyone who had played almost any amount of video games could tell you there was little more thought-provoking than planning out a build.

One could go full unga-bunga and go all in on strength, looking to club enemies over the head and caring little for complicated things like ‘plans.’

Others would go full dexterity and sneak around the shadows, stealth kills, and assassinations.

The problem was that this wasn’t a video game. The attributes before him, while reminiscent of video game stats, were nuanced in their approach. Want to invest in strength fully? Well, have fun with your body tearing itself apart, as it's too fragile to handle the sheer force generated. Unkillable with maximum durability? You may be unkillable, but with such pathetic strength or other attributes, you’d never manage to scratch even a baby.

“Well, maybe that’s pushing it.” Rory half chuckled.

Still.

Strength was generally valuable, as it allowed for more power output and speed, given that it was tied to the body's physical capabilities.

Durability would prevent him from being killed by a bunny slicing open an artery on a drive-by attack.

Flexibility, while not as directly useful as strength or durability, would allow for never taking a hit in the first place if you could twist out of the way in ways only an Olympic gymnast could pre-collapse.

Which left Cognition, Pneuma, and Growth. Cognition would be necessary as monsters began to move faster and faster, but they hadn’t quite reached that point yet. Therefore, it was a relatively low priority for the time being.

Pneuma was where things got interesting. It was an attribute that pertained to magic, of all things. However, the System Avatar had made it apparent that it wouldn’t magically—pun intended—teach him how to use magic. Until he had a better grasp of Pneuma and magic, it would be a waste of attributes.

Which left Growth.

I won’t lie. It’s tempting.

To invest in growth was to invest in his future potential, and it would also allow him to delay deciding on a direction for the time being.

Plus, what is it the System made clear of? That I’m an Architect.

Perhaps he was buying into the stupid title a bit too much, but when you only had so much information to work with, why not take advantage of what he’d been explicitly given or stated to have?

After all, do you need the durability to take a hit, the flexibility to dodge one, and the strength to put a monster down if you can create things to make it easier?

It was a simplified reasoning, but that didn’t change the fact that it wasn’t wrong. Mind made up, he quickly put thirty percent of his available attributes into Durability, another twenty into Strength, and the final fifty percent into Growth. The bell curve next to Growth immediately shot up, putting him at the top percentile.

So, I guess everyone else had different thoughts.

His Pneuma distribution rank was dead in the middle, meaning he hadn’t been the only one to realize investing in an attribute you couldn’t even use for the time would be a waste. Cognition, he was slightly below average, meaning at least one person had put some of their overall attribute density toward it. Flexibility was likewise below average, more than even cognition, meaning it had been more invested overall than cognition. Lastly, both Strength and Durability were well behind the curve.

Almost everyone else put most of their points into some combination of Strength and Durability, with small amounts into flexibility.

Satisfied with his direction, he closed the Attribute display as a new one replaced it.

“Vocational Capabilities expanded.” Rory read aloud.

I guess the System wasn’t kidding about being able to improve it with an Ascension.

“Fortress Focused: An Architect is the engineer of tomorrow, but tomorrow can only be ensured through surviving today. Grants greater understanding of Defensive structures.”

Overall, it was a solid choice. Walls weren’t exactly the most complicated structures to build. Still, if he ever wanted to do anything more than that or improve his walls in ways that weren’t just a matter of galvanizing them through liberal ascension energy, he would need to expand his understanding of all things defense.

“Patience goes a mile where instinct goes a foot.” Rory reminded himself as he forced himself to look past the first option offered.

“Tools of the Trade: An Architect is the engineer of tomorrow, but the marvels of tomorrow cannot be built without the proper tools of today. Grants greater understanding of crafting equipment.”

“Now that just feels like an insult,” Rory grumbled. He’d done his best to make usable gear, but clearly, the System disagreed.

That or it’s just a predetermined sort of thing.

“And lastly… oh, that’s interesting.”

“Maker’s Arsenal: An Architect is the engineer of tomorrow, but tomorrow can only be ensured if the enemies of today are defeated. Grants greater understanding of weapon crafting.”

Three options, and what’s more, they were three good options. If he went the route of Fortress Focused, Rory could imagine himself manning ballistae atop towering marble walls, tearing apart roving packs of monsters before they could even get close. Tools of the Trade would ensure that regardless of his prior experience, or lack thereof, with the crafting professions back on Earth, he’d be plenty capable of knowing exactly what he would need to prepare himself, be it a hacksaw or some specialized tool that only a master of their craft would even know of.

Lastly, Maker’s Arsenal. It was the most obviously useful. Weapons were the bread and butter of survival; he could distinctly recall how the jackalope had ruined his primary weapon as easily as he would break a twig. Had he had a better grasp of weapon crafting, perhaps he could have made something that would have survived the attack, or maybe he could have made a weapon that would allow him to avoid being forced into a close confrontation to start.

The question is, which do I choose?

“Hey, System? I know you’re not like, actually here, anymore, but could you do me a favor? Can you randomize my options?”

While Rory received no verbal or audio confirmation that the system had heard him, a wheel appeared on his display, with three options, each taking up a third of the wheel.

“Thanks.”

Swiping it once, the wheel spun rapidly before slowing down. Seconds passed as the spinning wheel continued to slow until finally coming to a stop.

And there you have it.

The wheel had landed squarely on Maker's Arsenal, locked solidly in the middle of a single option, so there was no questioning the result.

Can’t say I’m not at least a little relieved.

Nodding to himself, he dismissed the wheel, inspecting the ascension results. Frowning only a little, Rory couldn’t help but question the system mentally.

I know it said no numerics… But it sure would be nice to see actual stats.

Perhaps with a Major Law creation… No, no, that would be a waste of a Law Creation for something like that; he’d already ‘wasted’ a Major Law by creating the System.

Is that even a waste?

Only time could tell.

Glancing at his attribute distribution once more, he confirmed that his average placement hadn’t increased or decreased, thus meaning no one else had allocated any attributes within the last few minutes. No longer looking at his attributes, Rory instead focused on his vocation, or more specifically, what was listed directly below, ‘Maker’s Arsenal,’ the single listing there.

I guess that’s everything.

“Alright, I’m done he-”

“-re.” In an instant, Rory was no longer floating in the endless void of space. Instead, his eyes fluttered open as he was met with his cramped shelter. Crawling out from the small shelter, he tentatively flexed his fingers, testing how his body felt.

Definitely noticeable.

It was hard to put a definite number to it, but he could feel greater strength just by clenching his fist. It wasn’t as if he had doubled in strength, but if he had to guess…

Something like thirty percent? It matches the approximate density I afforded Strength.

Rory couldn’t feel himself any ‘tougher,’ but that was something he’d only know by being directly wounded or attacked by a monster.

Or I could cut myself.

Rory dismissed the idea. With his greater strength, he could probably cut himself just about as easily; plus, there was also the potential that Durability was only effective when being attacked, and self-inflicted wounds may ignore it entirely.

All in all, for all the importance of an ascension, he felt only marginally different.

I guess that is the point: You don’t dump that much into Growth and expect something more significant.

Aside from his relative strength increase, the only other notable change was that his brain felt like it was being lightly tickled for several seconds, new thoughts forming of their own accord.

No, not thoughts. Knowledge.

It was as if the world were uploading ‘how-to’ guides into his brain, teaching him how to make small weaponry properly. It wasn’t as profound a knowledge gain as he had hoped, but it was there, nonetheless. Closing his eyes, he could see the imagery of how to properly carve a bow and string it, how to fold metals, and how to hammer a white-hot material into the desired form.

Just one issue.

Sure, he suddenly felt as if he had a frame of reference for crafting weapons or folding metal, but he lacked the know-how for anything else revolving around the process.

“Not going to beam all the answers straight into my brain, and I gotta figure some of it out myself. Got it.” Rory sighed.

While he wouldn’t be making Excalibur any day soon, a bow was more than reasonable. All he needed was a single good knife to whittle away, and with the remains of so many monster rabbits, he was sure he could whip up a half-decent tendon bowstring.

Which I definitely am going to need.

He stared at the untouched corpse of the jackalope, recalling how close he’d come to death. Sure, he was one ascension higher than when he’d fought it initially, but he was only marginally stronger, with fifty percent of his attributes put into Growth. Still staring at the jackalope, a lightbulb went off in his head as he looked at the antlers, which seemed too large for its body.

No… maybe?

Walking toward the deceased boss rabbit, he gave the antlers a poke. They were strong; he could recognize that instantly, but what was both surprising and pleasing was that the antlers also had a modicum of bend.

I think they will work.

Feeling like a man possessed -Rory had always been known for his one-track mind when he was excited about something- he found his crafting knife as he carried the corpse to his sitting log. No longer even phased by the grisly work of desecrating monster corpses, Rory began by sliding his knife into the jackalope’s skull, removing flesh as he searched for where the antlers fused into its skull. Hands slick with monster blood, it took nearly half an hour of messy work before he finally managed not just to find the connecting bone fragment but also slowly chisel through it with his knife.

You probably want a proper chisel for that, but alas, that’s the luxury of someone with mastery of basic metallurgy.

Antlers removed, the boss monster looked no different from the rest of the caerbannogs he had skinned and dissected. Admiring his work, or at least appreciating that he hadn’t completely mucked up, Rory finally noticed something off, almost like a beeping or buzzing.

“What in the world is that?” He frowned before opening his interface.

Ohh.

Rather than being greeted with the ‘home’ screen, the first thing to appear was a notification.

Ascension Acclimation Completed: Analyze function improved.

“Analyze feature?” Rory questioned, confused. “There was an analysis feature?”

Mentally prompting it, the display swiftly changed, appearing like the camera screen you’d find on a phone when taking a picture. Wherever he looked, the display seemed to swivel to lock onto.

That’s a little disorienting. Can’t it be a little smaller?

Responding to his thought, the display once more morphed, now a crosshair that he could mentally lock onto an object if he didn’t want it to track wherever he was looking at the time freely.

Better.

Wanting to test the feature, he glanced at the removed antlers, letting the crosshair lock on as a display popped up next to the antlers.

Jackalope Antlers

Quality: Common.

Sturdy, magically conductive collagen. Once fully matured, jackalope antlers will become stiff and difficult to break but afford even greater pneuma conductivity.

“Huh. Well, isn’t that something?” Rory gently tapped the flat of his knife against the antlers. The description basically confirmed that they would work for his current plan. Still tapping his knife against the antlers, he changed the analysis target from the antlers to the knife itself, suddenly curious.

Bloodbound Crafter’s Knife

Grade: Poor

The knife is considered invaluable as the tool of choice for nearly any profession. This particular knife is the first knife of a fledgling artisan, directly bound to the blood essence of its crafter, and may grow alongside the skills of its master.

“Well, that’s unexpected.” Rory could only stare at his knife, one part pleased and another confused.

Bloodbound? How?

The answer was obvious when he thought about it. Part of his ‘recipe’ for its creation literally involved an almost ritualistic bleeding of himself.

May grow alongside the skills of its master? Considering how the system seemed to deem my creations ‘poor’ grading, it's probably a good thing.

“A little rude,” Rory muttered. Sure, it wasn’t the best knife he’d ever seen, he used to watch a show all about blacksmiths forging artisan knives and such, but he hadn’t thought he’d done that poorly in comparison.

Ah, who am I kidding?

The only other thing that surprised him was how mundane the analysis descriptions were for both the antlers and his knife. He’d been half expecting them to mention stat—er—attribute bonuses in video-game style, but neither the antlers nor the knife had any.

The antlers could be considered a crafting ingredient, and perhaps the knife being poor grade means no bonuses.

Looking around his small campsite with analysis still open, Rory began taking in as much as possible. Most were reasonably mundane descriptions—a rock said, “A hardened compaction of pulverized minerals,” for example — but others were more interesting.

Hermit’s Shelter

A basic form of shelter, provides no direct bonuses outside of protection from exposure.

“Oh? So there can be bonuses gained from things like buildings?” Rory questioned. His walls returned to boring descriptions, a plain ‘Defensive measures made to protect from monsters and enemy forces.’ What was interesting about the walls was that when he looked at them with Analysis open, a gauge of their integrity also popped up.

It's helpful, but not for the time being.

The final thing of note was his small pond.

Small Aisormba reservoir

A small pond filled with distilled essence. Slowly regenerates over time.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Rory admitted. He’d been afraid that he’d be forced to move once he was out, but apparently, this universe's version of water could refill itself just fine.

Turning his focus from the pond, he focused on the small stalagmite forming within it.

Embryonic Crystalized Essence Spire

Rarity: Extreme

A natural treasure, Essence Spires generally form only when exposed to extreme amounts of latent background pneuma or through the direct intervention of a highly potent intent.

“Potent intent?” Rory shook his head, uncertain about that. He couldn’t just force one to form; otherwise, the rarity shouldn’t have been extreme, but neither could it have been formed through extreme amounts of background energy. Given that Aelia was only an A2 planet, he doubted that anywhere in the world probably counted to meet that requirement.

Side note: What’s with the differing descriptions of stuff? The Antlers were referred to as quality, my knife was referred to by grade, and this is referred to by rarity.

Perhaps it was because the antlers were considered an ingredient, his knife a manufactured object, and the essence spire a natural treasure. Still, he didn’t exactly have many data points to compare against.

Putting that aside, again, how in the hell did this thing form here, of all places?

Scratching at his chin, he finished reading the description his analysis provided of the tiny little spire.

Embryonic Crystalized Essence Spire

Rarity: Extreme

A natural treasure, Essence Spires generally form only when exposed to extreme amounts of latent background pneuma or through the direct intervention of a highly potent intent.

Naturally enhances the ambient pneuma.

“Nifty, I guess,” Rory admitted. It still didn’t explain why it had formed.

All I did was upgrade the pond… wait, is that why?

It couldn’t have been as simple as upgrading the pond. The rarity made it clear it shouldn’t be that easy, but a different thought struck him. Opening his interface, he let his gaze linger on his vocation.

That’s the only thing that makes sense.

Architect of the Precursors. He knew it had provided certain benefits or privileges, and he knew technically he met the description of a ‘precursor,’ but in the end, he’d still only thought of it as flavor text. In books and movies, when you heard about ancient precursors, they were always extremely powerful, intelligent, or advanced beings.

And Rory was just... Rory.

Flavor text—that was all it was meant to be—a semi-edgy video-style description that was in part founded in his understanding of video games, specifically what he picked up from some of his nerdier colleagues.

However, he was beginning to believe that maybe it wasn’t just a fancy flavor text, and there really was some major significance behind it.

Such as being capable of causing extremely rare natural treasures to form in the saddest campsite known to man.

That aside, the spire was only at its beginning stage of development or formation; whatever that implied in the long term was beyond him for the time. The fact that it enhanced ambient pneuma was interesting. Rory wasn’t sure pneuma and ascension energy were analogous, but either was probably a good thing.

Probably.

“So... probably time to begin hashing out plans,” Rory said as he turned off analyze, his vision no longer marked by a floating target reticule. “First, the next wave.”

He’d opted out of forcing the next wave, which was likely a good choice given he only had a few days until it would have been scheduled to begin, but while another wave wouldn’t be crushing him in a few days, the cooldown timer on the beacon would be up.

And he didn’t intend to decline it again.

“That’s what… ten days to work with?” Rory mumbled as he slowly sawed off the branching nubs of the jackalope antlers. “Ten days to prepare for the next wave.”

Not bothering to gesture physically, his interface flicked open briefly before he closed it again, noting that his progress to his next ascension was at roughly fifteen percent.

“There's no way I'll reach the next ascension by just meditating around,” Rory said. With as much Growth investment as he had, he was certain to see a rather significant slowdown in his ascension progress, not to mention the fact that each ascension required ten times as much energy as the last. He’d need to murder the killer rabbits by the dozens every day if he wanted to reach A3 within ten days.

Probably the point. If you could clear ascensions that quickly, well, it just doesn’t seem right.

If he couldn’t increase his strength by ascending again before the next wave, he would need to increase his ‘strength’ through other means.

Which was point numero dos to consider on his list of ‘things to consider.’

“I need a decent weapon. I’m not fast enough or strong enough to box my way through a bunch of bloodthirsty monsters. Maker’s Arsenal would be helpful in that department, but given my current resources, most of what I can make is fairly limited to small melee weapons.”

Ignoring, except for humanity's greatest weapon, the ability to launch pointy things from further than a person could throw.

“A bow. I need a bow.” Rory confirmed his thoughts, knife still slowly working on the antler.

Which was precisely what he was trying to address. From the tough yet springy antlers, he would fashion the limbs of his future bow. He could already picture it, in part thanks to the aforementioned Maker’s Arsenal. Sure, he didn’t actually have any experience with archery, but that was also why having ten days would be useful. With a week of dedicated practice, he was confident he could improve his talent with a bow enough to be prepared for the next wave.

“Ascension. Unlikely. Bow? Probable. Armor?”

Rory frowned as he worked. Unfortunately, Maker’s Arsenal didn’t extend to crafting protective gear.

I guess I can try to fashion some cuirass from the scraps of caerbannog hide.

It was unlikely to do much to prevent any serious wounds, assuming he managed even to make one that didn’t fall apart instantly, but it might at least protect him from glancing blows to an artery that could lead to his untimely end.

As I have no idea how durability interacts with blood loss, I’d prefer not to find out firsthand if I can help it.

“Other orders of business: Magic.” Rory considered it even as he spoke, uncertain what there was to say. “It would be for the best to figure that out.”

Quite the observation.

Grunting, Rory watched a piece of the antler fall to join several other nubs on the ground by his feet. His hands were on auto-pilot as he removed unwanted blemishes from what would become the limbs of his bow.

I wonder if I can use those for anything.

The system had identified the antlers as having a high degree of pneuma conductivity, and he happened to have an extreme rarity natural treasure only a few feet away.

Maybe I should grind them up and…. Yeah, I'm not sure where I was going with that thought.

His vocation was Architect of the Precursors, not Alchemist of the Precursors. If he had any dreams of concocting potent elixirs and deadly potions, he’d have to discard them for the time being; he had no idea where to start.

That’s not to say I can’t come up with anything, is there?

There was one idea he could come up with. If he attempted to fashion a bow from only a single antler, it would be child-sized, but there was no way to know if his binding agent, his faux cement, would be good enough to fuse the antlers together as he intended.

But, if he ground up the excess antler bits and added them to the mix, there was the chance it would be precisely what he needed, more… ‘magic-y’ and thus able to properly fuse the antlers into a single deadly instrument of war.

Or, that’s the theory based on absolutely nothing other than, ‘That sure would be swell if it worked that way.’

“Bow, maybe armor, anything else?” He asked himself, cataloging his thoughts.

I probably want to get another bat made.

His obsidian bat had been conducive to the slaughter of monster rabbits; it had just had the misfortune of being erased by a magical monster rabbit. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t highly effective, though.

“And while I’m at it, I could probably make some sort of shield while I’m at it as well.” For whatever reason, shields seemed to be at least partially covered by Maker’s Arsenal, which felt like splitting hairs to Rory, but he wasn’t about to lodge a formal complaint to the system for giving him free knowledge that he didn’t think should have been under the umbrella classification as a weapon.

“Bow, maybe armor, a new death bat, and a shield.”

He nodded to himself, a relatively comprehensive list of things to work on. Based on his prior crafting sessions and current understanding of the profession, which had been heightened by Maker’s Arsenal, he estimated it would take him approximately five to six days.

Which would leave another four to five days of free time.

“And what exactly am I supposed to use that for?” Rory questioned, mulling over the question before he found an answer he figured everyone would appreciate.

“I guess it’s obvious. Pest control.”