Heading out for 'work'

Once out of the bathroom, John checked his interface to see if he had received any new messages:

Hannah [07:05]: You’re really eager for this job, aren’t you? I’ve just received the message about your order. It’ll be in our garage in an hour or so, and our R&D Team will apply some standard enchantments to your vehicle. If you want, you could get that and your Abyssal License today, if you have the time. Also, do you have an answer for the question I asked you?

John [07:10]: Good Morning Hannah, yeah, I’m totally hyped for this job! And I would like to pick up the bike today then, maybe around noon if that’s possible. And yes, I do have an answer for you: I don’t want to go to school anymore. I want to put my time into more effective things like work and other projects, and school just doesn’t seem useful to me right now..

Astrid [06:30]: That sounds… concerning. I will keep my eyes out for anything weird, but I don’t think I should or could help you with whatever is going on… not after last time and not before I don’t feel safe with my own power…

John [07:11]: Totally reasonable! I just wanted you to know about it and wanted you to keep an eye out for anything weird. Yeah… it’s probably best if you don’t go berzerk anymore :P

Kim [06:45]: There are many weird things going on at school. But in a town like Springfield, that’s not surprising. And there are multiple Barriers in and around the school, used by the various Abyssal students and teachers. Anything specific?

John [07:15]: Well, there’s this Barrier filled with replicas of students ripped up and torn… And apparently it belongs to one of the new students. I’d like to find out what’s going on in there… would you be willing to help me?

Hopefully, Kim would help him, even though he was pretty sure she wouldn’t help him while school was going on. Well, that only meant that he had to wait until after school to check out the place… Maybe he could do something while he was waiting for that to happen…

As John was brainstorming on what else he could do to beat time (aside from spending it in his Nexus), his eyes fell on to something on his shelf.... Wait a minute… If he could use specific things while creating a Barrier to make them about more specific stuff, could he…. No… could that work? Would that really be possible?

He quickly took one of the statues from there into his inventory and got ready to leave the house. If this worked, then he would be the happiest man!

As he descended down the stairs, he saw that his mom was already gone, seeing as how her shoes weren’t by the door and her keys were missing. She usually was early at work, especially if they had a lot to do.

By the key rack hung a note, detailing exactly that:

Hey sweetie,
I’ll be busy at work today, we have a large order coming up, so maybe you could deal with food yourself today? That’d be great! Hope you’re having a great time at school!

Love,
Mom

Huh, nice, so he didn’t even need to leave the house really, if he just took his stuff with him, making it look like he had left for school; he could just go wherever he wanted right now!

Picking up his shoes and a jacket, he then walked back into his room, opening the Nexus in there. If his mom wasn’t going to be around until some time this evening, then he didn’t need to be cautious in the house for now.

As he entered the terminal room, he was immediately struck with inspiration. If he wanted to properly stash away his newly acquired bike, then he would need to make room for it in the Nexus, and seeing as how the doorway always opened in this room, he would need to expand this room and make it able it contain the bike. It would also probably be best if he could install some stuff so he could tinker with the bike.

“Good Morning, Master, I hope you have slept well?” sang the melodious voice of Sarai in his ears. The AI appeared in his vision, once again as Tohru, smiling warmly at him. It warmed John’s heart to know that there was always at least one… person that would be happy to see him.

“Morning, Sarai, yeah, I slept pretty well. I don’t think I need to ask you the same thing, do I? Say, I have some ideas to work on the Nexus, could you help me with some of those? For example, I’d like to make this room here bigger so that I can park a vehicle here. How would I do that? Would I go up to the well to do that?”

The AI shook her head, “No, I have seen Master Alric do it often enough. He simply **** the magic that was tied to the Mana Well into ‘existence’, making the room bigger through sheer willpower and magic. Since your abilities are very much different to his abilities, I do not know how you would be able to accomplish it, but I would guess that it would work through your Bond.”

John thought about that for a second; that would make sense… His excess mana was flowing from himself into the Mana Well of the world, so it would only make sense that he could will the mana out of it to shape the world. Sure, he had already created the tree, but this was different since he was changing something that was already here.

Concentrating on both the Bond and the visual image of the receding wall to make more space in the room proved to be quite successful, as the wall John was looking at was now 4 meters further away than it was before. The carpet on the floor had proceeded in the same way as the rest of the room had. As John thought about removing the carpet due to potential problems with the planned machinery he wanted to put in here, the floor immediately changed to a smooth but hard surface that was probably made out of the stone surrounding the room. It was completely level with no imperfections, as if it was simply cut out of the stone. Looking at the now thrice as large room, John nodded with a satisfied nod.

There was something else he would have to do though, hopefully that would work as well… As he approached the dark doorway that was leading to reality, he grabbed it by one side and tried to pull it further into the room. His hope was that that would expand the entryway so that he could fit a bike through it more easily.

His plan worked pretty much as he hoped, though he had to use a lot more **** than he had expected.

Now that the room had the necessary measurements for what he wanted to do, John opened up his Construction Menu to see if he could build something that he could use for some kind of workshop in here.

Current Mana: 558 MP

Available Constructs:
Crafting Bench, 150 MP, reduce MP cost for Crafting by half, improve quality of products and chances to have a critical success. Effect only applies when skill is used adjacent to Crafting Bench.

Essence Fluctuator, 200 MP, reduce MP cost for Essential Alchemy by half, improve quality of products and gain chance to return one Essence from the ingredients. Effect only applies when skill is used adjacent to Essence Fluctuator.

Barrier Gateway, 350 MP, open a Gateway to any Barrier you have created or any Kingdom you are bonded with. Can only travel once per day and only in one direction.

Material Replicator, 250 MP, 5 MP/h, put in one instance of any material and the Replicator will replicate it. Depending on rarity, quality and complexity, replication will last different times for different materials.

Essence Replicator, 500 MP, 15 MP/h, put in one instance of any essence and the Replicator will replicate it. Depending on quality and rarity of the Essence, replication can be different.

Material Refiner, 300 MP, 8 MP/h, put in multiple instances of the same material to refine them into one or multiple instances of a material with a better quality. Refinement process can vary in length depending on the materials, amounts, and desired materials at the end.

Automated Bench, 200 MP, 3 MP/h, improved Crafting Table with additional functions. If activated, can use Craft on its own to keep creating specified items. You will not gain Skill EXP from this crafting.

Training Dummy, 200 MP, 2 MP/h, automated sparring partner that can be set to specific levels. Dummy will be humanoid shaped by default but can be created in different forms. Training with the dummy will yield XP for creatures and Skill EXP for you. Authorized humans can activate the Dummy

Training Field, 250 MP, 3 MP/h, generate a dome of protective magic around a specific place where no physical damage will be taken during combat. Various modes for training purposes can be selected in a menu.

Wow, he suddenly had a lot more options for the stuff he could do! So, if he had interpreted the objective of his quest correctly, then he had to build any of these constructs to get the bonus? Piece of cake!

Sadly, there was nothing in those options that really fit with what he wanted for this room… maybe he had to collect more mana for that or maybe he would have to learn more things so that he could build it? John wasn’t really sure about either of those… But for now, he had something to build!

He then went up to place some of these constructs in the vacant rooms he had in the mansion. Deciding to use the first room he came across as an alchemical laboratory of some sort, he placed the Essence Fluctuator in that one. As he thought about where to place it, in the place that he thought about it, something seemed to grow out of the carpeted floor. It quickly grew to the size of a large table and changed its colors to look a lot more like wood than the carpet.

About a minute later, John stood in front of a ornately built table, filled with various tools and containers that, while he couldn’t name, he certainly somehow knew how they would benefit him with his Essential Alchemy skill.

Next he decided to put a Material Replicator into the next room, which would be the crafting room. This Replicator would exactly fulfill his idea that he wanted to do this morning where he would get a lot of materials that he could then work with! The Material Replicator turned out to be of the appearance of a dual slotted furnace, where in one slot would go the to be replicated material, while the other would be where the replicate would come out from. Taking one piece of Scrap Metal from his inventory, turning on the Material Replicator, and putting it in, a pop-up then appeared over the Replicator, telling John how long it would take.

Replicator Lv.1
Status: In progress
Material: Scrap Metal
ETA for Replication: 01:29:58

So, he would get one piece of Scrap Metal every hour and a half, that was nice. Also the Lv.1 indicated to John that he would be able to upgrade these things to work better.

Bonus Objective completed!
Build 2 devices or upgrades in the Nexus
+200 XP
+1000 Mana to Mana Well
+1 Upgrade to Mana Well

Mana Well, Lv.2
Mana Cost for new Constructs reduced by 15%, maintenance cost reduced by 10%, 75% of excess Mana will now be saved.

Nice, so he just finished the first Objective of his quest. Now he just had to level up his Skills and deck out his gear…

But first he wanted to try something. Or, in this case, two things:

One thing was that he wanted to find out if it was possible to create a Barrier in the Nexus. In theory, that should be possible, but John simply wanted to find out if it was possible and if it would make a difference.

The second thing he wanted to see had to deal with the statue he picked up from his shelf. It was the recently bought statue of Aloy that he had gotten on Monday. Now, he had the ability to use specific items to create a more specific Barrier. The question was, would this now count as something made out of plastic or would this count as something belonging to the game Horizon: Zero Dawn? Because in the case of the second, this would blow the lid off of a lot of stupid things John could do.

As John made his way to the garden of the Nexus, he was greeted by both Gary and Thorn tussling with one another. It didn’t seem as hostile as it was yesterday, so maybe it wasn’t that bad between them anymore? Thorn seemed to have grown a bit since yesterday, noticeably so.. That was interesting to John, as he didn’t expect to see a change in the little guy for a while… Did that have something to do with the kill of the Imp? Did he gain one or multiple levels through that?

Thorn
Zinogre (Baby)
Lv. 4 Wolf Wyvern
RP: +150

So he did level up, interesting… Thinking about it, John decided that he would take both of the little guys with him into the new Barrier, under the condition that he would instantly send them back should it be too dangerous for the two of them.

As he was about to create the Barrier, a small maintenance drone approached John with a metallic pot attached to it. The pot was filled with the fruits from the tree. “Please prepare yourself for what you want to do, Master! It would be detrimental if you would go on an adventure with an empty stomach.”

That was a good point; he mentally thanked Sarai and ate the Star Drop and the Pineapple, while he gave the Dragon Fruit to Thorn. Gary didn’t need any food, though John didn’t really know what powered Gary…

Pulling out the statue, John used Create Barrier and selected the statue of Aloy as the specific item for creation. He looked at the item one last time before hitting Confirm and destroying it…

What appeared next, John was not prepared for.