Grey collapsed to his back, taking deep breaths.
What had he just done?
Honestly, he had thought it would be simple. Just replace the eye portion of a blueprint with Esmeralda’s. But the problems ran far deeper than that.
The Proving Class materials couldn’t withstand the might of Esmeralda’s eye, so they kept shattering apart and wasting the energy built within.
But when Grey tried to use stronger materials, he found that he couldn’t manipulate them at all. It was so easy for him to form Proving Class materials that he had just assumed it would be as easy all the way up. But those materials didn’t even respond to him on the Cyber Mat. It was like they were inert.
So Grey went back to using Proving Class materials, trying to see if there was a method he could use to improve the blueprints enough that he would be able to complete his idea.
Nothing worked.
In the end, Grey had to cheat. He paid the modification fee of 50,000 Energy Units and then let himself reach the end of the ticking time bomb in his head.
When that message about his Canon Event being missed descended again, he experienced that familiar pain one more time.
He had truly not wanted to. It felt like he was losing more than just a life, he was losing the very essence of himself. Some part of him was being chipped away.
But he knew that if he didn’t do this, defeating the vampire pimp would be little more than a pipe dream. So he pushed.
Even when he returned to his newly laid checkpoint, that pain still echoed through his body, phantom lashes whipping against his senses.
He could only distract himself, laying out the newly improved Ball Bearing Eye and then beginning a new build.
It was quite the cheat code. He had spent 50,000 Energy Units, gotten what he wanted, and yet the Cyber Cores were still right here. If only dying didn’t suck so much.
After going through all of that, Esmeralda’s eye just barely stabilized within the Ball Bearing Eye socket. But Grey didn’t even dare to put it up to his face and fuse with it just yet.
If he did that, he just might destroy it and himself in the process. For now, he carefully stored it within his inventory. He had been hoping it would only take one energy unit, but it had taken over 30,000.
In the end, he had still ended up wasting over half the energy here. But at least he now had at least one slot in his inventory that could house something pretty powerful in the future.
But now, he was dealing with another problem.
—
Stamina: 3/29
—
’Not bad, I guess... I’ll just lie down here for the time being...’
...
Grey’s eyes snapped open and he lurched upward. His mind spun with thoughts of how long he had been asleep and how much time there was left until his Canon Event, but he didn’t get far before someone interrupted him.
"Finally awake?"
Grey turned to the side to find that Amunet was kneeling beside him, her body still shrouded in shadows.
Raising an eyebrow, Grey looked at her with a bit of confusion. Just because he was on the ground didn’t mean that she had to be there too.
"What?" Amunet asked. She couldn’t see Grey’s face with his mask on, but he was staring a little too hard.
"... Why are you kneeling here like a little demure wife? Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with me already."
Amunet scoffed. "You’re my ticket out of here and you just randomly passed out. I nudged you several times and you didn’t wake up. I was worried."
Grey chuckled and pushed himself the rest of the way up. "Fair enough. I had to waste more of the Cyber Cores to store the treasure piece, but I think we have a good chance now. Is it 100%? Probably not, but we can try."
Amunet waved a hand. "If the witch wasn’t the main boss then that means that whatever rewards come from Valdris will be even better. There’s more than enough to make up for it later."
"Who the hell is Valdris?"
"The vampire pi—." Amunet stopped herself before she finished and Grey burst into a fit of laughter.
"You’re so childish, you know that?"
"I’m still a minor. I have the right to be childish."
"What? Really?"
"So surprised? Don’t tell me you’re an old hag."
Amunet sighed and shook her head. "That explains so much."
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
Amunet’s only reply was another sigh as she stood up. "Come on. While you were asleep someone came sneaking around the cabin. I have a feeling they know something probably happened to Esmeralda. If they know she’s dead, this won’t be a safe space anymore."
"You killed them?"
"I think so."
"You think so?"
"Well, the corpse kind of vanished into a pool of shadows. It was hard to tell if that’s just what happens after they die, or if it was a special escape technique."
Grey slowly nodded and stood up. "Thanks."
Amunet smiled, or at least the shadows around where Grey thought her lips probably were swirled a bit.
Honestly, it was kind of creepy in a girl from The Ring crawling out of a TV kind of way. But Grey had a feeling that Amunet liked it that way.
’That’s odd, though. During the other loops, there weren’t any scouts that came around here. Was it because Amunet headed out and spotted them? Or was it something I did that changed this loop?’
"Here."
Grey looked down at the bloody tome Amunet handed over.
"I’ve had my fill for now. I doubt I’d be able to understand anything else until I reached the Established Class anyway. Do you want to try and learn something from it first?"
Grey gave the book a once over and then decided against it. From a quick check, there were only four or so hours left until his Canon Event. There was no time to learn something new and make it back.
Plus, if he died in this loop as well, he would just have to try it out again.
The duo stepped outside of the cabin, their bodies as ready as they were going to be. But Grey almost instantly felt that something was wrong.
He looked up into the skies, and then toward the distance.
That black curtain was the entrance of the Dark Kin’s holding. It was the same spot they had stepped out of right before they ran into Esmeralda who had been waiting for them.
He was sure that it was a several minute walk away before. So why was it so close all of a sudden?
Grey’s heart skipped a beat as he seemed to understand something.
It was, indeed, his fault that things had changed this time.
Esmeralda was probably doing something to hold back the darkness. During her conversation with Valdris, she had said something about them reaching their boundaries further than they should be allowed, but he hadn’t thought much of it.
But after he put her eye away, there probably wasn’t anything blocking it anymore.
The shadows shifted and Dark Kin began to appear one after another.
This time, though, they were not babies.