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In the morning Sally said over breakfast, "I got a message from Walter. We're doing closed door training today and for the next week. I got the impression that it was not a request." Mark winced. Eliot said, "Oh yeah! What did you guys talk about yesterday? Anything you can talk about outside of the Hall?" He added, "Also, that's fucking scary, Sally." Sally laughed.

"Yeah, it is pretty scary…" Sally lost her laugh.

"He's like a hammer made of needles. A small hammer that I want to pick up and fling away. I probably could, too! He probably only weighs 150 kilos."" I could see that," Mark said. Isoko answered Eliot's question, "We only talked about stuff that we had already talked about; the nature of organizations, how to interact with police, stuff like that. There were also other things that you'll have to be an Inquisitor to find out. Do you want to be an inquisitor?"

What she had said was pretty much what Mark and Isoko, and then later Sally, had agreed to say about Inquisitor's Hall. They would not tell Eliot about permanently killing demons; the guy was already scared of mental magics, and he was the weakest one of them in that arena, though he was also the most well-guarded in that arena, too. He had been wearing Mind-enhancing shields of various sorts for a long time, now.

Either way, Eliot didn't want to know the big secrets, otherwise he would be trying to learn the big secrets. Eliot waved a hand.

"Pass. I got enough on my plate. I'm not going to be an Inquisitor, too." Mark said, "Speaking of… I saw Derek last night at the Brawny Battle. We talked some. He seems cool, but he told me that nothing happened with the Sacredcuts."" They are not willing to teach him at all," Eliot stressed.

"Like sure! He could make a bunch of bespoke artifacts and outproduce the best artificer houses in the Two Worlds, and thus put everyone out of a job, or, if he worked for you, fully control everything he does himself, and then what need is there of you? Perfectly normal responses to a multiman." The sarcasm dripped. Mark grinned a little.

"Sounds like you have some feelings about that."" Just a few!" Eliot said.

"But it's not like the fears are unfounded."" Yeah, I was about to say," Isoko began, "There was that guy in the 90s who basically revived what had been the Chinese industrial revolution or whatever it was called—"" Great Leap Forward," Eliot said, nodding." Yeah. That."

Isoko continued, "Called himself 'Manufacture Man' and he tried to spread the Basic Income program and it was working for a while, for 8 years, and then something killed him or he stopped, and several hundred million people lost their entire Basic Income program. A bunch of special manufacturing ended, too. Tokyo had to rapidly learn how to supply its own stuff." Mark was surprised. He had never heard about that at all.

But then again he had been raised under Curtain Protocol a world away from Isoko, who had been in Tokyo, right next to the Chinese city states. Mark couldn't even remember what any of those city states were even called. Beijing was one of them, right? Where was it on a map, though? Mark had no idea. Eliot said, "Grandma helped build the factories in a lot of places to repair that loss of manpower.

Back then the tech wasn't so good, so they had to use a lot more AIs, and United Sapients helped, and that's how they got really strong political power the world over. They still run a lot of the Basic Income program over there, but people with Talents still do the special manufacturing, like warding hexes for wall installation.

Memphi and the settlement's walls are still missing a lot of warding hexes—" Eliot pointedly said, " That's what I want to have Derek's help with, and why we also need him to learn some artificing." Mark asked, "What's a warding hex?" Sally asked, "Yeah? Same question?"" They're a layer of defense," Eliot said, "And you can stack them infinitely… theoretically. But they're expensive to make; one of the most expensive components of city walls, actually.

What they look like is a grey hex about 15 centimeters across with grooves in the edges so that they can tessellate with each other, and they're basically the Shield spell, but in a softer sort of way. They don't break unless the actual warding hex breaks, and what they do, if you have enough of them, is that they project a directional field that keeps away all harmful acts…" Eliot frowned a little, and then he said, "But maybe they're more like a Power Level enhancer— Yeah.

That's probably the better way to think of them. The Power Level of materials on Earth is 0. On Daihoon the average base Power Level of a non-living thing is between 1 and 50, with 10 to 15 being common for pretty much everything you'd find in a city, and stuff like adamantium and other special metals being outliers." Warding stones make the PL of walls go up, up, up!" A good warding scheme adds another 10-20 Power Levels based on whatever they're enhancing.

They're basically one of the most important things that can go into a wall, or into anything defensive, and every single one is an artifact that has to be hand-made by an actual Tinkerer, Artificer, or mage. We've been going without ever since we started, and in all the walls we rebuilt for Memphi. But we could really use them, if we could get them." Mark sat back in his chair, like the sky had opened up. He softly said, "Oh shit. Yeah. Derek would be great for that?"" Exactly!" Eliot said.

"Most of the Walls that were made in the 90s were supported by Manufacture Man. That time was one of the great booms in city expansion because of him. And then Manufacture man vanished and life got hard in a lot of unexpected ways."" How many bodies was Manufacture Man?" Sally asked." Tens of thousands," Isoko answered.

"His loss was a massive loss."" Wow," Sally said.

"… Derek can't do that, right?" Eliot said, "No idea. Also, normal people are doing the job, too, so it's getting done. But 10, 000 Dereks all making warding stones? Yes, please." Mark had a thought about all of that, asking, "Could Manufacture Man have just… not wanted to do it anymore?"" That's one of the main theories, yeah," Eliot said.

"I doubt he was killed." Isoko said, "He could have been. He was like 40, 000 people, and they were all the same, so one strong magic was always going to be his main weakness." Eliot shook his head, saying, "Ehhhh… If such a thing was possible then it would have happened long before his 8 year run in the Basic Income manufacturing plants, and that event would have killed parts of him before it killed all of him. The records show he vanished all at once, from everywhere at the same time.

So he wasn't killed in any conventional way, if he was killed. So he most likely decided to stop."" If you believe the official story," Isoko said. Sally wholeheartedly agreed with that sentiment, saying, " Yeah. If you believe the official story." Eliot shrugged. Mark asked, " Could something kill all of a multiman at once? Derek gave me the impression that people have been using him and killing him for years, now, but he's survived all of it."" He's also only 22-ish," Isoko said.

"23?"" 22," Eliot said.

"And yeah, he's survived it all. Learning to fend off pervasive techniques is pretty much the only thing that multimen actually try to learn how to stop, though. What's a few deaths when you don't really die? But a pervasive poison? Yeah; that is something you put all of your effort into learning how to avoid." Isoko hummed, starting to agree. The conversation lapsed. Mark asked Sally, "So you're going to be in there for a week?" Sally smirked, happy that Mark hadn't forgotten about her going away for a week.

"And when I come back out I should be able to fend off any normal Minder."" Oh shit," Eliot said, "Maybe I should be an Inquisitor." Sally easily said, "It'd be easier if you're in there training with me, instead of walking around out here alone and vulnerable. I trust —" she stressed to everyone, "—that we're not considering asking the multiman to buddy with Eliot? I was fucking uncomfortable when you went out with him alone, Eliot."" Awww! I didn't know you cared that much!" Eliot said, grinning."

Asshole," Sally said, "Of course I do." Mark felt really happy in that moment. Isoko said, "Well I've got nothing to do today except pick up groups, so I'll go with Eliot. Mark?"" Guys!" Eliot said, "I am safe here in the settlement! Thank you very much for your concern, but Mark is more at-risk of getting up to weird danger than I am." Sally teased, "Doubtful."" No no!" Isoko said, "I fully believe Mark is going to get up to some weird shit soon enough."" Exactly!"

Eliot said, "Rescuing people from corrupted gophers, getting pursued for a marriage proposal and setting off fireworks in the skies—"" Oh god, why did you have to remind me of that," Mark said, "I had forgotten about Lissi." Isoko smirked, adding, "There was that time you got hounded by ten different very nice brawnies for swords like you gave Titanfist, and don't forget your battle with Tartu last month!"" Why did that battle even happen?" Sally asked."

I completely forget about the battle and whatever Noel made of it," Mark said, "A lot of shit happened."" And the kaiju battles, of course," Eliot said, "So yeah. Mark gets up to more dangerous stuff than me. I just go to meetings every day." Sally laughed once.

"Meetings! Is that what you call late night dinners with pretty girls from the Empire?" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Eliot was unrepentant, "Yes. Absolutely." Breakfast was over, but they shot the shit for another half an hour before Sally got another message from Walter, and Sally groaned about needing to do that. But really, she was excited." I'm going to learn so much about how to properly use Retribution!" And then she was off.

Isoko headed off with Eliot, off to another talk with the Sacredcuts about getting Derek some training. And Mark, upon being reminded about all those brawnies that came looking for weapons, decided that he should actually think about that. Sure, saving up his adamantium and selling it to Okuana might kill demons eventually, but monsters needed killing the world over, and Mark had the perfect weapon for all of that necessity. Adamantium made really great weapons.

- - - - In the second floor of their 4 story house, Mark actually did his morning set of workouts, first. Today was a legs and ass day, and that was easy. After finishing that, Mark went to the other side of the floor into the forging space, trailing his 156 kilos of adamantium in the air with him.

He set the metal down on a side table as Quark flickered to holographic existence on some holographic projectors overhead, to stand like a silver-colored Mark, but with different clothes and a different face, beside the central table. Quark had a full range of investigatory scanners in the room and he would be using all of them today to help Mark figure out how best to forge a weapon. Or really, to analyze the weapon Mark made." Bring up the schematics for the people who want weapons, please."

Lissy's name and weapon appeared first, and Mark remembered that woman all over again. She was 26, Hero name 'Survivor Girl'. She was pretty, but Mark didn't care about her in that way at all. She was, however, a rather strong hero in New Denver, who came to the settlement on the recommendation of her Power, which was 'Body of the Survivor'. She didn't explain anything except for what she wanted, and what she wanted was to marry Mark and to get some weapons from him. Mark was not impressed. Lissy had insisted.

Mark tried to run away and Lissy chased him across the sky somehow, and it was a whole embarrassing thing. And then Mark had promised to get her a weapon eventually, if she could afford it, and that was enough for her to leave. She had declared, though, "The hardest part is securing a source! I have done that. Money will come. See you later, Markie~" Mark shuddered as he remembered her.

She reminded him too much of Kardi, but at least Lissy hadn't given him any sort of lovesick-vibes in her vector; she was pure utilitarian in coming here and asking for what she asked. Unfortunately, when Mark promised her a sword, that opened the floodgates to a bunch of other people asking him for a sword.

Every time Titanfist killed a kaiju with his fully-black, obviously-fully-adamantium sword on any of the shows coming out of Memphi's HVP, Mark also got a thousand email requests for a sword in this or that style. A few people could actually buy them, too. Mark ignored the people who could buy them. Quark sorted the ones that Mark felt most needed one, though. There was Lissy, at the top, followed by 10 others. Mark ignored Lissy's request and focused on the rest of them, picking out…

"This dagger, I think. I'll try it again." The dagger was for a 48 year old guy named Eru from northern Australia, who had two Powers that made him very capable in battle, and pretty much an anchor for his city, but made his weapons die very, very fast. He had wanted an adamantium weapon since forever, but there was no way he was ever going to be able to afford one. So he came all the way here to the settlement and kowtowed to Mark, and that was embarrassing, but Mark told him that he would get back to him.

That was a while ago. Mark had worked on this weapon now and again since then. Eru's Powers were Poison Body, which made him incredibly deadly to everything and everyone near him, but he was past the part of his life where it was uncontrolled. So now Poison Body was just what he could do. Also, he had Natural Flight. And so, Eru was a flying auto-killer, who only needed to fly by most monsters to kill them, most of the time. The weapon only came out for monsters that had Bodies over 70.

When he encountered one of those, he used a dagger to open up a few nicks to allow him access to the monster's internals. Eru did pretty much the same thing Mark did with a Union of Vein Decay/Integrity, but much more concentrated. His weapons died when he tried to kill through them, though, which is how he always had to kill the tough ones. But! If he had an adamantium weapon, he could probably help kill kaiju."

So yeah, top of the list, I think," Mark said to himself as he pinched off a kilo of adamantium from the pile.

"Let's see if I can make a good one this time." Quark dismissed the other weapons from the floating diagrams and then he expanded the requested dagger form to showcase the attempts Mark had already made on this request. How many times had Mark tried this one already? Ah, yeah, 14 times. All bad. Most of the attempts had ended early when Mark decided he was not feeling the end result, or even the middle result.

They were all twisted messes that were not daggers at all, and if they were daggers, then Mark's attempts made them weaker than they should have been, his forging actually dropping the base Power Level that was basic adamantium from 79 to even in the 50s for this one really bad dagger. He could do better, though. Mark held up the kilogram of adamantium with his kinesis, turning the whole thing liquid under his Power. Weapon crafting with adamantium and mithril were both widely known and publicized on the internet.

Mithril more so than adamantium, because the amount of mithril out there in the world outnumbered adamantium like 1000 to 1, or some ridiculous number like that. Mithril blooded people were relatively common, too. Mark was the only adamantium blooded person he knew, but there were 34 mithril blooded people in the city, and most of them were contracted through Metallic Bank, like Mark, to sell their mithril through normal channels.

But mithril crafting was all about flow and resilience and the ability to bounce back. Flexibility. Adamantium crafting was all about being unchanging and solid. Kaiju blades were made out of mithril, primarily, because it was good for the base of a sword. Kaiju blades all had an adamantium edge, though, because some things needed to be solid to work best, like edges, and adamantium was fucking expensive.

Mark was working in full adamantium, though, so all he cared about was basic crafting technique using magical metals. Magical metals were not like normal metals, most of the time. The first thing to consider when making a weapon out of a single crystal was the fact that it was a crystal. Perfection in crystallization directly led to an increase in the Power Level hardness of a weapon, from a base of 79 for normal adamantium, to something hopefully in the high 80s or early 90s. The higher the better.

The specific way to crystallize metal was either along the ideas of form, or function. You could crystallize a dagger and it would do all the things a dagger could do. Useful for a lot of varied tactics. That was the form. Or you could crystallize a shard of adamantium with the ideas of infectious, deadly poison, and you might not end up with a dagger at all.

If you went far enough with that idea, and just the idea, like Mark had twice so far, you might get something like a twisting mass of adamantium that you couldn't set down anywhere, because it would start to cut into anything it was set on. If you made it too erosive, then it would practically tumble through objects, mulching into a steel bench, and not stop until it ended up 20 meters down and tangled up in electrical wires. That had been annoying to fix.

Mark's experiment had burrowed down through the floor, into Eliot's workstation, and killed a few of his own experiments. Whoops! So a happy medium was required between form and function. Trapping the function into the form was the preferred 'perfect' way to make specific weapons for specific people. That way they could use their Tactile Telekinesis and various Powers through the weapon, without the weapon resisting those powers. It was the resistance to Powers that caused a weapon to break down.

That's why Eru's daggers always broke down; the weapons were too weak, and too resistant. Adamantium was very resistant, but if Mark made it stable enough along poison-transmission properties, then it might work out well for Eru. That is what Eru told him he needed in a weapon, anyway. Mark wasn't sure why it worked like that, only that it did, and the videos on the internet backed up Eru's claim.

Which was yet another reason why Mark wanted to give weapons away to deserving people; to find out if what the videos were saying was true. He made weapons for himself on the fly all the time and he really liked his glaive weapon, but who really knew if a well-made 'adamantium poisoning knife' actually worked as it was intended to work. So Mark took his blob of flowing adamantium dagger and he solidified the thought in his mind of infectious/spreading/deadly poison.

And then he used Union to breathe out a small bit of miasma, like a thread of black barely visible in the light, right into the center of the blob of adamantium. Mark didn't have much of those kinds of poisons in him right now at all, but there was enough toxicity gained through simply living in the world that he was able to expel some stuff that his liver was already in the process of taking care of, into the blob of adamantium.

The curl of black soaked into the center of the black adamantium, and Mark felt it when the adamantium started crystallizing. This was the delicate part. Mark barely pulled himself back from that seed crystal, but in a specific way; in the shape of a dagger.

Where the seed crystal grew properly, Mark allowed it to grow in that direction, and when the crystal —which was all viciously curly and made partially of monowire— reached the edge of the dagger shape, Mark imposed that dagger shape onto the spreading crystal, granting form to the poison function. … It worked, sort of. The insides of the thing were all nasty and the dagger-shape wasn't there, but… Maybe? Mark made a little, "Mmm," sound, unhappy. He continued with the process, though, just to bring it to its end.

It took another 37 minutes of careful crystallization to bring about the final dagger shape and… honestly? It looked cool. Probably useless, but cool anyway. Probably one of his better attempts. Mark put the dagger onto the holder for the scanner, and Quark's holographic personhood began to flicker. Quark began his scan, and he would know the full extent of Mark's success or failure soon enough. But? Maybe? … Maybe Mark would keep this one around anyway, no matter what the scan revealed. It was almost art-like.

The handle and dagger were normal. The handle was long enough to hold in one hand with a bit of space left over, and it had a nice pommel, so it was more like a very small sword than a dagger. On the other end of the dagger, the dagger's point was pretty solid for 5 centimeters of length. Straight and solid. A punching dagger, for sure. Punch right in and then out. It was not for cutting.

The entire central space of the dagger was a tangle of fractal-like cutting shapes, monowire tangled up in sweeping, disruptive curves, and a shock of central crystal that was like broken glass running through the very core of the 'dagger' shape. Absolutely black, too. Darker than black. Light-drinking. That was adamantium for you.

It looked like a fucking mess, but the handle and the dagger's point were lined up with each other, and it had a 'solid-ish' central line, and it was adamantium, so the relative 'fragility' of the central mess was not that fragile at all. Not really. Mark waited for Quark. Quark took a bit longer, but soon he beeped and a readout appeared overhead, along with a replica of the dagger and a heat map of the PLs of the dagger. Mark happily went, "Huh!""

Quite right, sir," Quark said, "The only real problem I'm seeing is fragility, but that can be augmented with a proper enchantment… I think. I do not know where to go from here. You have not gotten this far before." Mark nodded as he investigated the Power Level heat map. On a normal map, the color green was middle-road, meaning PL79, which was the PL of unforged adamantium. Blue meant weaker areas, which was anything below PL70.

It was hard to make adamantium weaker than its basic nature, but Mark had managed it a few times, and especially when he introduced concepts that directly combated each other. Like the idea of making a hot dagger and a cold dagger the same dagger.

'Poison' and 'Dagger' mostly worked out together, though. The color yellow on the heat map was for PL 83, orange for PL 87, and red for PL 90. Purple was PL 93. Mark had not managed purple yet for anything at all, but he had managed red a handful of times. This poison dagger was a lot of yellow and green, but the poison center of the dagger was swirls of bright red monowire and orange glass-like crystal, and deeply orange all throughout the centerline of the entire dagger, from tip to pommel.

It was surprisingly solid, according to this readout." So… Yeah… Obviously the edges need grinding and sharpening, but… Maybe?"" It could be good or horrible, sir." Mark grabbed a wooden box from the side and picked up the dagger with a gloved hand so he didn't disrupt any part of it, and then he boxed it up, careful not to tumble it around in the box at all. That center part was still partially made of swirling monowire. It still cut through the edge of the box, even though Mark was careful.

It didn't seem like it would cut much further than that." Time to go get a professional's opinion."