At dinner ti, Joji noticed large boxes lined up outside, stacked neat as tribute. Clearly Jonas had taken his request seriously.
"I found about two hundred types of tal in our warehouse," Jonas said as they sat. "Would you like to look right now."
"I appreciate it," Joji replied, unhurried. "But let’s enjoy the al first."
He ate slow, letting warmth settle into him. Across the table he watched Alaric flex his arm.
The inflammation had gone down. Whatever healer the Cutlers employed had earned their pay.
After the al, Joji went out to the yard.
He inspected the boxes one by one. High quality stock. Not scrap. Not cheap alloy ant to fool a buyer.
Real tal, sorted and labeled, the kind a rchant family hoarded because it could be traded into anything, armor, tools, favors.
Joji’s mouth went dry with excitent. He was ant to eat it. That still sounded insane when he thought it plainly.
Still, the Sir Engine did not care what sounded sane. He imagined what his armor might beco after two hundred kinds of tal and felt a dangerous grin try to form.
Jonas lingered nearby, watching Joji and the boxes with open curiosity, as if expecting sparks or a transformation right there in the yard.
Joji cleared his throat.
"Mister Jonas," he said. "It might be presumptuous, but could I have this all ground into powder."
"Powder," Jonas repeated, brows raised. "Anything else?"
"That would be all," Joji said. "I appreciate you being accommodating."
"Don’t ntion it," Jonas said. He hesitated, then leaned in and lowered his voice.
"That thod you taught Walter. Will it put him in trouble."
"Not at all," Joji said. "I made it myself. It creates heat, not fire elent aura."
Jonas nodded once, relieved.
"Alright. I will have Martin handle it. Go rest."
Joji returned to his room and checked every corner before he did anything else. He looked under the table. Behind the curtains.
Even lifted the bed with both hands and set it down again, listening for anything that sounded wrong.
He could not afford Martin snooping on what ca next.
When he was satisfied, he opened the status window and selected the second job.
Dungeon Master.
Sothing jolted in his abdon. The pain did not spread through his whole body like the demon heart had.
It crawled back and forth all over his body, like a nest of needles tattooing his very veins.
Joji clenched his teeth and waited it out, breath controlled, sweat breaking along his brow.
He did not know how long it lasted. Ti blurred.
When he finally exhaled and realized his hands were shaking, he checked the water clock.
Three in the morning. He swallowed, wiped his face, and looked back at the status window.
Sothing new was there.
{Na: Joji of Sins Crossroad} {Age: 21}
{Constitution: Embryonic Storm Bringer}
{First Job: Rank-3 Knight}
{Second Job: Rank-1 Portal Wielder}
{Aura: 13.8}
{Mana: 17.1}
{Brawn: 8.8}
{Quickness: 8.6}
{Wisdom: 20.4}
{Stamina: 19.4}
{Charisma: 18.9}
{Fortune: 28.5}
{BODY AUGNTATIONS}
{Eyes} {Rank: C}
{Cave Ogre Eyes - To see through night and darkness as though it were noon-day.}
{Regeneration} {Rank: D}
{Runt Troll Regeneration - To regenerate wounds and, in so asure, to heal even the vital organs.}
{Imp Demon Heart} {Rank: E}
{Assimilated by the Embryonic Storm Bringer. Your body is now extrely attuned to use mana.}
{Mineral Armodillo Armor} {Growth Type} {Current Rank: E}
{Assimilated by the Embryonic Storm Bringer. Your body can now grow armor by consuming different tals.}
{A new instinctive trait has been added. You can summon your body armor. This consus both mana and aura when extended and retracted.}
{To repair your armor, consu more minerals. The changes will be visible.}
{PROGRESS OF TRAINING AND ARTS}
{Fundantal Level of Swordsmanship}
{asure of Proficiency: 67.6%}
{Interdiate Level of Swordsmanship}
{asure of Proficiency: 12.6%}
{Fundantal Level of Close Combat}
{asure of Proficiency: 14.1%}
{Everhart Tempest Arts Series: 3/10} {Rank: S}
{Lightness of the Wind Art}
{asure of Proficiency: 9.6%}
{Erald Blade Wind Art}
{asure of Proficiency: 9.1%}
{Protectorate Barrier Wind Arts}
{asure of Proficiency: 7.9%}
{Ferryman Shadow Guardian Series: 2/10} {Rank: S} (Incomplete)
{Into the Shadow Arts}
{asure of Proficiency: 5.1%}
{Blade of Deceit Arts}
{asure of Proficiency: 5.4%}
{(NEW) Forerunner Dungeoneering Series: 1/?} {Rank: ???} (Incomplete)
{Gate of Small Beginnings}
{asure of Proficiency: 0.1%}
{TITLES AND ACHIEVENTS}
{Everyman - Can do, learn, and master pretty much any kind of job.}
{A Passive Skill Borne Forward from Your Forr Life.}
The system was acting mysterious again. For the first ti, it returned nothing but question marks where an answer should have been, and that alone made Joji’s skin prickle.
"Why are you not able to identify this?" Joji asked.
{The manual you have acquired is far too incomplete. Therefore its rank cannot be discerned. It is as with a single black hair, there are tens of thousands of beasts that may bear such.}
{Even if you narrow it by the feel of it, there remain yet hundreds, even thousands, of creatures that might have grown that very strand.}
Joji nodded. He understood the logic. Still, excitent kept chewing at him. Incomplete or not, it worked.
He tried it imdiately. He followed the flow of mana and aura through his arms the way the manual described, careful at first, then hungrier.
Reality rippled. A transparent wave pushed outward as if the air had beco water for a heartbeat.
And then the drain hit. Not gradual. Not polite. It slamd into him like the fatigue from fighting a hundred knights, only it arrived almost all at once.
His limbs went heavy. His breath turned shallow. The room tilted.
"Oh co on," he groaned.
When he woke again, the sun was already high, noon light spilling through the window like he had lost half a day in one blink.
Hunger clawed at his belly. This body demanded fuel the way a furnace demanded wood.
Outside his door waited a huge tray of food, at and bread and eggs, even wine like they feared he might die without it.
Joji ate fast, barely tasting, only feeding the need until it stopped screaming. After he rested, he took a deep breath and tried again.
This ti he did not rush.
He worked slower, feeling as if he were shaping an invisible puddle in the air, sothing his mind’s eye could see even when his real eyes saw nothing.
He kept the flow steady, kept his breathing even, kept the drain from biting too deep.
The power stopped on its own, as if it had decided the shape was complete.
Still, he felt the drain. It was like going all out in the gym, every muscle burned through, with ntal exhaustion piled on top.
His excitent beat it anyway. Joji reached out and touched the opening with a wide grin. The world blinked.
He stood in a room just over a hundred fifty square feet, ceiling low enough that it made him think of tight spaces and hidden freight.
About nine feet from floor to ceiling by his rough guess. It felt like stepping into a shipping container back on Earth, that sa boxed in sense of space ant for storage and nothing else.
Only the interior was not tal.
It was new black granite, clean and sharp edged, nothing like the mossy old stone back in Lacrosse.
No damp. No rot. Just cold rock and still air, as if the place had been built yesterday and sealed since.
Joji started giggling like a fool. This was enough.
Enough to hide things. Enough to move things. Enough to make the world unfair in his favor if he played it right.
He stepped back out, grabbed an item at random, and placed it inside. Then he left again. Then returned.
It was still there. Joji stared at it and felt his mind start sprinting ahead of him.
"This will make fucking filthy rich," he said, voice low with excited disbelief.
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