Chương 19: Chapter 17 - Kerby and Demonite

Your majesty, this is the fifth time this week that System has informed us that the [Demon Lord] is casting a dangerous ritual. I am well aware. But what would you have me do? Order our people to scour the island again? Send them off on a fool's errand to an abandoned landmass amid the sea that shows no sign of him? I do not know, my lord. But we must take some kind of action. The people are growing restless.

They are starting to believe that either System is fallible or that the [Demon Lord] has already completed several rituals that- Wait a moment. Repeat that. He's already completed several- No, what you said before that. They are starting to believe that System is fallible? … We can use that. Perhaps it is time we end that elf-dominated sect that has been making inroads into our lands. Conversation between King Graham and one of his aides Your excellency… What is it, my child?

I am afraid to admit it, but with the events of this past week, I have been having doubts. Worry not. This has been a trying time for all of us, and doubts only prove that we are mortal and not divine. Thank you… but what should I do? It is not what you should do but what we all should do. These messages of the sacred blue text can mean only one thing. The [Demon Lord's] power grows, and we must do all we can to stop him.

It has become clear that demonic influence has spread among us for too long, and we must redouble our efforts to cleanse it. Conversation with the [Archbishop] of the church of System That's the sixth time this week. What do ya think he's doing? No idea, but after all those sons of daves have done, all I gots to say is this. Give 'em Hell, [Demon Lord]. Conversation between two dwarven slaves As I continued petting the surprisingly fluffy three-headed beast, I realized I had a problem.

Namely, the text that still came up despite the unusual entrance I made to the boss room. System: You have entered a special boss room! You will be unable to leave by any means until the boss is defeated. But he is defeated. Look at him. I mentally argued with the System as I pulled my hands away from the giant canine, and it let out a soft whine. Also, something something, defeat enemies by making them a friend.

I continued my mental arguing as I slowly backed… and ran into a solid, yet invisible, wall. I folded my arms across my chest and started pacing.

"There has to be something I can do," I muttered. Meanwhile, the boss got up and gave me a big lick across the entirety of my upper back and head… and it was even worse than expected because it was multiplied by three. I shuddered a bit at the slimy attack and then summoned a dave, which I quickly tossed farther in the room for him to play with. … The dave didn't last very long, of course, what with the hellfire and the boss's giant demonite teeth, but it at least gave me time to think. It doesn't say kill.

If it did, I think I'd be out of luck, but I must have to do something more… official… to say that I defeated it. My reprieve was up, and the three-headed dog was headed back my way.

"Sit!" I called out. To my surprise and shock, it did. And that gave me an idea. There has to be something for this kinda thing, right? I am a tamer. I am a monster trainer. I am a [Monster Tamer]. System: Monster Tamer subclass has been set Booyah.

"[Tame Monster]!" I called out. That immediately got the boss back up on its feet and snarling at me. However, I replied by chucking it some more meat. It let the pieces hit the floor as it started slowly circling me.

"Come on!" I pleaded.

"If this doesn't work, I'll have to fight you, and I don't want to fight you." It growled again, but I summoned and tossed another dave. It quickly chased after it and batted it into oblivion, then slowly returned.

"Come on," I muttered.

"[Tame Monster]!" It staggered a bit and gave a soft whine. Meanwhile, I was also starting to get a splitting headache.

"Just… push through it!" I said half for the dog and half for myself. Unfortunately, the pain just kept coming. Before I knew it, the both of us were right next to each other, awkwardly keeping each other standing. It paid off, though. After gritting through a few minutes that felt like a few hours, I was treated to the sight of success. System: Successfully tamed, #ERROR INVALID MONSTER CLASS Does that count as success? I asked myself. You know what? We got a different error message. I'll take it.

Counts in my book. Then, suddenly, the giant dog put its heads together and attempted to bury them in its paws as it whined again. I was worried that I broke it, but as I reached out and felt things shudder for a moment, I knew what had happened. System patch. Alright. What we got? For once, I wasn't even left wondering. System: Successfully tamed, Cerberus Class Monster System: Choose a name Well, I can't name him Cerberus now. That's his species. It would be like naming a dog, dog. I frowned for a moment. Wait.

Wasn't there a different greek name for the three-headed dog? Kerban… Kerbor… Kerber… Frick it.

"Kerby," I stated, locking in my choice. Was it my best naming work? No, probably not. However, my new 4-legged friend seemed happy with it, and that was all that mattered. … I got another three-pronged lick attack for the trouble, but at least my surroundings caused that to evaporate quickly.

"Alright now, moment of truth," I stated as I walked towards the entrance of the boss room and motioned for Kerby to follow. I passed through the barrier with a grin. Then, turning around, I beckoned to the cautiously moving Kerby.

"That's alright, boy," I said.

"Just take it slow and see if you can get through." He proceeded cautiously… and then was left with his middle nose scrunched up against an invisible barrier. Kerby whined loudly and started scratching at the invisible barrier… which was cute, heartbreaking, and terrifiying at the same time. I mean, aside from dungeon-strengthened materials and the gamey invisible barriers, I wasn't sure that there was anything else in Placeholder that would stand up to those claws.

That tested out, I walked back into the barrier and gave Kerby some pets as I thought things out. Darn, no giant hell-dog to ride into battle. I thought with a brief frown. However, I had achieved my objective. I could simply gather some demonite, maybe even with Kerby's help, and then leave him there… all alone… forever. I looked up at the giant dog that was panting quickly in time with my pets and sighed. I'm the worst [Demon Lord] ever, aren't I? I asked myself as I tabled crafting my sword once more.

"Alright Kerby, time for you and me to figure out a jailbreak."

Unfortunately, none of the easy tricks worked. The barrier seemed to take no damage from Kerby's attacks, even when [Strengthened] and [Hasted], and none of my attacks interacted with it at all. That left teleportation as the next obvious answer. Unfortunately, any attempts to teleport the cerberus outside of his designated boss room resulted in him getting slammed into the walls at high speed.

He took it like a champ, so we tried multiple times, but I have to admit that each subsequent failure made me cringe even more. I tried upping the power that I used, but that mostly just made things worse. Then, I finally tried to take him along with me using my [Panic Button]. That slammed him into the wall hard, and even worse, he was completely left behind as I teleported back into my secret room on the Placeholder side of the portal..

I rushed back as fast as I could, but watching the poor dog lying there motionless at the edge of the barrier waiting for me was almost too much to handle, especially since he was still just as happy to see me as he had been before I left. However, I still had one last thing to try, and I was going to go all out.

"No, bad dog," I scolded as Kerby started chewing on one of the giant magicite crystals I had brought.

"I need all of those intact, and they were a pain in the butt getting down here without them melting." I was given three sets of puppy dog eyes, but I was adamant. Having my first crystal completely melt on me before I could do anything had set the stage for how annoying the process would be, and coming up with the right enchantments and needed amount of black mithril (since normal mithril also had that problem) had taken months.

Oh, and puppy dog eyes also work a bit less well when the eyes in question are about the size of your head.

"Set it down," I ordered again. Kerby grudgingly put the array back down, and there were only a few sets of puncture wounds in it. It should still function. I thought as I looked it over. Probably. Kerby started whining for my attention again, and I knew that I needed to get the cast over with as soon as possible.

"Alright, Kerby, I'm going to try something that might get you out of here, but I need to focus. Okay?" He just stood there panting while looking at me, and I took that for acquiescence.

"Good," I said as I pulled out Singularity and started casting.

"Now, don't touch the array. Got it?" That was a tall order for a three-headed dog whose master wasn't willing to play with him, and I had to snap at him several times to get away from it over the next 2 hours. As for what I was casting, I was making a pocket dimension. I figured if I couldn't take him through the barrier on the outside, maybe I could copy the room and its surrounding area over to a pocket dimension, take him inside it, and then kick him out of the pocket dimension outside the barrier.

I definitely wish I had brought some backup crystals, though. I grimaced as I looked at the array and its significant bite damage. I just thought I would need the one. I mean, it's just a simple pocket dimension, right? The fact that I could seriously call any pocket dimension "simple" was a testament to how far my space magic skills had come. However, in comparison to all the others I had seen, it was the least complex by far.

It wasn't even meant to work permanently; I just needed to copy and shunt the space off until Kerby got outside the boss room. Then it would never need to work again. At least, that was the plan up until I began casting.

"Through the power of space, I subvert this chosen place for my own," I chanted. Meanwhile, Kerby didn't like the magical thrum coming from the array.

"Be broken bonds of dimensions AND-" my voice broke on the final word as Kerby charged the array and chomped down on it again. I couldn't mess up any of the words, or the spell would fail, but without that, I had no way to tell the dumb dog to let go of the magical hazard that was potentially going to blow us to kingdom come. I didn't have an option. I had to see things through." Movetotheplaceofmydesignationandsurrendertomywill, [Kerby'sSpecialTemporaryPocketDimension]!" I finished rapid-fire and cast the spell.

Despite all my concerns, the cast went through. As expected, Kerby also joined me inside the pocket dimension, though the array was left behind.

"Alright, boy, now hurry and follow me!" I called out as I sprinted towards the edge of the room. Kerby didn't follow. Instead, he began whining and burying his heads in his paws as best as he could. I would have thought that was just a temper tantrum, but then black foam started leaking out of his mouth. Kerby started convulsing, and I made the next decision in an instant. I snapped a [Disrupt] at the pocket dimension.

We were instantly brought back to real-space, and I initially breathed a sigh of relief as Kerby calmed immediately. Then I noticed the other giant canine in the room. Aw frick. I thought as I spied Kerby's twin. Taking the boss out of his room must have spawned another one. Meanwhile, Kerby was in no position to fight.

"It's okay," I called out, interposing myself between Kerby and the newcomer.

"We'll just make another friend." I started pulling out some monster meat but had to dive out of the way as the new Cerberus charged and seemed to be going for a bite. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. I tossed it some meat, but it ignored me and continued growling at Kerby… even as it turned its back to me.

I tried to rush between the two dogs again to separate them and get its attention back on me, but it pushed me away from Kerby with its backside, even as it continued growling. It's behavior made no sense. It was acting like it was guarding me, but why would it do that unless-"Unless," I muttered. I didn't like possibly playing with Kerby's life, but I didn't see another good way to confirm my suspicion. I [Flash Stepped] over to the side.

"Over here, Kerby!" I shouted. 6 heads pivoted in my direction. That could have just been from the noise.

"Stay!" I called out as the uninjured Kerby made to move in my direction. It obeyed, and my guess was partially vindicated. Moment of truth.

"Kerby, could you please nod your right head for me?" I asked. The injured Kerby on the ground slowly nodded its right head… along with the newcomer. Then, they both looked at each other and growled.

"Woah, woah," I said calmly as I came between them.

"Make nice Kerby… and Kerby," I stated. Both looked at me in confusion, but they let me give them both some pets on the head, so long as I gave them both an equal amount. Well, I managed to break things with Kerby even more than I thought possible. I mused as I scratched both of my monsters behind the ears. I thought taming him was good enough, but apparently I also encountered a duplication glitch. I wonder if I can repeat it?

Just recreate the exact damage that Kerby did to the array and- I trailed off as I looked at where the array had been and saw it completely missing. However, a quick look around the room showed several pieces of magicite melting into the ground, along with dozens of shards of black mithril stuck into various walls.

"So much for that," I muttered. Then, I looked back over at Kerby and Kerby.

"What am I going to do with you now?"

My main goal had been completed despite my distractions. I now had an easy-to-access regenerating supply of demonite. Over the next weeks and months, I gathered more than I could ever use … at least, once I made an adamantium pickaxe. Steel didn't even seem to scratch the stuff. But that still left the problem of Kerby. The… good?... news was that my two for the price of one sale on Kerbys never wore off, so I had two friendly three-headed beasts instead of just one.

The bad news was that duplicating him hadn't suddenly made either of them able to leave the boss room. The worse news was that it seemed there would be no more experiments with trying to get Kerby out of there. Given what had happened, it made sense that Kerby had a… violent… reaction to any new magicite crystals I tried to bring into the boss room. That ruined any further plans to get him out of there and greatly hampered any studies into the duplication glitch.

I tried to repeat the experiment without the giant hellhound, but I couldn't get anything even close to the same result. The more I studied it, the more it seemed that to mimic that success I would need all the pieces: a tamed monster, a boss room that tried to spawn another one, and a perfectly botched space ritual. In other words, it was a one-of-a-kind, unreplicable feat… unless I was willing to scour the depths of Hell, look for another special boss room, and repeat everything I'd done.

That seemed far too cruel to tame another monster like that, and eventually, my lack of progress took its toll.

I trudged back towards Kerby's room, defeated. I had no more ideas left. Images of the poor dog lying down waiting for me went through my head as I finally made it there. Except… that's not what was waiting for me. Both Kerbys were running around the room play fighting… at least, I think it was play fighting. They didn't seem too serious, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure that if an average resident of Placeholder was put between them it would have been close to the same as throwing them into a meat grinder.

The goal was to free him because I couldn't stand to see him sad and alone. I thought as I watched the two dogs go at it for a bit. But… I think this actually solved that problem. I just never realized it. I approached both Kerbys, and they both were happy to see me. A round of gross saliva baths later, I reached out and put my hand on both of their middle heads.

"It's been fun playing with you, and I'm really sorry that I couldn't get you out of here," I started.

"But… I can't stick around here much longer. I have things that I need to do." They both whined, and I stroked their head fur placatingly.

"I know… I know. I'll still come and visit, and…" I had an idea.

"I'll also make sure you get some other people to play with too, okay?" Neither Kerby was happy to see me go and to be honest, I would have much rather taken them both with me. I mean, they were both good companions, and I'm sure they were terrifying to fight in battle, which was a plus. However, I had what I needed from the depths of Hell, and it was time to get back to crafting my weapon. I still had time to make good on my word, though.

"Down in the depths, there is a boss room with two three-headed hellhounds," I stated to all of the demons who were at my castle… not an inspiring number since it was only wrath and madness demons, but it was still a surprising amount.

"I'll leave directions to it. Anyway, your orders are that at least once a week, one of you at least should go and play with them. Spread this around to the others, and I don't care how you decide who goes." I paused for a brief moment as I remembered my usual demon diplomacy. Right. End with a threat….

"Needless to say, none of you will like it if this is not done. Are we clear?" All the gathered demons and imps threw themselves on the floor with various cries of "yes your lowliness" or "yes, [Demon Lord]." With that taken care of, I dismissed the crowd. It was time to make some prototype weapons.

Of all the materials I'd worked with, demonite proved to be the biggest pain in the butt by far. The first problem was melting the stuff. I mean, what kind of fire can you use on something that remains solid in the fires of Hell? It turns out the answer was actually still hellfire. Just more concentrated and direct. It took a while to reverse-engineer [Hell Blaze] and make a smaller, more sustained fire, but that's what eventually did the trick. Well… mostly.

It never fully melted, but at least everything else melted away so I could separate out the metal and the part I called "Hell sludge." However, not actually melting meant that I couldn't use casts. That meant that far too much of my time was spent slamming it with an adamantium hammer (and then eventually a demonite one) until it was in the shape I wanted. … And all of that was just the ordeal for my knife, hammer, and furnace since I had to upgrade all of my tools in order to work on that stuff.

To make matters worse, I was curious. And curiosity led me to see what would happen if I chucked a bunch of mana and/or charged magicite in while I was doing the "smelting" process. The result was good, but it meant an even bigger pain in my backside. I learned that demonite plus mana equals sanguinite, a better material in almost every way. Stronger, more enchantable, and a deep dark red instead of the normal color.

While it's arguable that the last point isn't strictly better, I was annoyed that everything I was making was black. Black mithril (which was black and shiny), adamantium (which was matte black), and then demonite (which was black with a slight red tint). As for why it was better in almost every way, it turned out that sanguinite had another curse stacked on top of the infernal one. Ominous. While using the item, the user hears strange whispers in their head.

I like to think I'm fairly resistant to that stuff, but it still drove me crazy… in both meanings. I had to step up how often I [Restored] myself to ensure that I kept all my marbles in one bag, and I quickly decided that I would never make any armor out of the stuff. A tool that I used for a bit and then put away? Fine. A piece of armor that I wear constantly so I hear the voices forever? Hard pass.

However, I have to admit the other consideration was that I didn't have [Armorsmith] high enough to make masterwork armor anyway. In other words, I had doubts that I could make anything that would match up to the armor I already had. With those trials taken care of, it was time to finally make some swords. After a few duds, I replicated my mana-stealing enchantment on a sword, though it seemed to be less potent than Essence Thief. However, I wasn't done from there.

If I could steal mana, why not the other two resources? I started with stamina since I was sure that one would be helpful. My misgivings about health came from [Healing inversion]. I wasn't sure if that perk would care if the health I was restoring was stolen or not. Changing the enchantment from mana to stamina was more difficult than I expected but probably easier than it had any right to be.

It was easier than it should be because it was basically just changing out one rune that meant "mana" for one that meant "stamina." And it was harder because it turned out that changing that one rune meant that I had to make hundreds of other tweaks to keep the entire thing stable. After that was finished, it was time to try health. It would either work and give me a simple way to regain health in battle, or it would allow me to create incredibly elaborate ways to commit suicide.

Honestly, I was expecting that it would be the latter. Given how much the System liked to kick me while I was down, I was sure that [Healing Inversion] would be a rule with no exceptions. It would seem that I was in for a surprise…

I nodded to myself as I examined the small knife I had made of sanguinite. Enchant looks good, and [Appraise Weapon] shows the health-stealing passive effect. Time to give it the first test. I ignored the whispers in my head as I put away my tools and pulled out one of my adamantium swords. Just need something that can deal a point or two of damage. I thought.

That meant I could have also settled for removing my armor and just poking myself with a knife, but taking off all my armor felt unsafe in addition to being a pain in the butt. So, as the whispers in my mind urged me to do awful things with the knife in my left hand, I gave a firm slash to that arm with the sword in my right hand. … Which I think actually got the whispers to stop in confusion for a moment.

It was probably just the pain, but I like to think that it was because they were so confused that I actually did it. Missing a few points of HP. Perfect. Now… first test.

"[Summon Dave]," I cast, and the lime ball plopped to the ground in front of me. I looked down at the dave.

"This will hurt me more than it hurts you. Probably," I stated as I stabbed my unsuspecting summon with the knife. I felt… something. Well, it didn't give me the intense feeling of nausea I get when I heal someone else, and it didn't hurt like it does when someone heals me. Does that mean… I flipped open my status and blinked a few times.

"No frickin' way. That… works?" I asked. I looked down at the dave again.

"And on my own summon? I was sure that…" I trailed off. I expected the test to fail on the dave for a dozen different reasons, which was why I had started there. First, I expected [Healing Inversion] to kick in. Second, I expected I couldn't steal HP from a summoned monster even if the perk didn't work as I assumed. Third, the System wasn't completely ripping me off or instantly patching out that interaction. And for that last point, I made sure to test a few times just to make sure it wouldn't go away.

I had the dave attack me to lower my HP a bit more, and then I recovered about 10 HP from just killing the 50 HP dave.

"Well, I have to make a real sword for that now," I mumbled. It was going to be a pain, but it was a really good problem to have. In addition, it added another nice problem.

"What enchant will I go with when I finally make my real weapon?" I asked as I realized I had too many good options. Health drain was certainly a contender, but I also saw the place for either mana or stamina drain. In addition, a good old sharpness enchantment could never go wrong, but I had my misgivings about that one. I really wish that I could make a more targeted enchant. I thought. I only really struggle with angels and bosses at this point, so if I could just make an enchantment like… My eyes widened.

"Like the Hero's weapon," I murmured as I looked over it in my inventory.

"It deals extra damage to demons and bosses." I almost pulled it out then and there, but I refrained.

"What are the odds that you're the reason why the next [Hero] hasn't been summoned?" I asked the inanimate object in my inventory.

"Could it maybe be that they can't bring in a new [Hero] since I have you captured?" And that gave me a choice: I could just leave it in my inventory forever and never have to deal with a [Hero] again, or I could pull it out and try to learn its secrets before it inevitably vanished and was put into the hands of the next [Hero]. The weapon also has multiple forms. I thought. Right now, it's the Hero's Rapier, but there has to be some type of enchantment or System shenanigans that lets it change form…

and if I could maybe repurpose that… I had a decision to make. Never summon a [Hero] again, but never be able to make my sword as good as I wanted it, or allow the [Hero] to be summoned and get a brief chance to study the weapon. It was probably pretty foolish, but I made my choice quickly. I've been having a good track record against [Heroes] recently. I thought. So I'm going to do it. But if I am, I want to do it right…

In this case, "doing it right" meant that I would practice using [Appraise Weapon] to get more detail on things quickly and see if there was anything I could do from a System standpoint. I had seen many different [Hero] weapons over the years. While it was difficult to remember what runes it had on it, since most of my memories were it being used in battle against me, I was pretty confident that there were not nearly enough to impart both damage effects and the ability to change form.

That meant it was time to see if there was a System-level equivalent to [Appraise Weapon], just like there was a System-level [[Message]] that was an analog to the [Message] spell. Unfortunately, there was no System-level for appraise weapon. And my attempt at casting it failed. At first, I thought I just didn't have enough mana, so I tried it again. After my third attempt, I finally figured out that I was just using the wrong words.

And that was the other funny part about "casting" with manipulation points instead of mana. Unlike spells where I had a good idea of the effect and how the mana was being converted to cause it, manipulation points casting felt more like a black box. Like I was just calling something else and letting it do the work. And that's how I cottoned onto the fact that I was calling functions and not casting spells. With the failure of Appraise Weapon I decided that I needed to try something more clinical.

Unfortunately, Display Item Properties did no better. Show Item Properites was right out, and Item Details didn't work either. The funnier thing with all of this was that I was drawing huge amounts of mana to try to call those functions, and every time I did, the System would shoot off a warning to the entire world. It freaked out the merpeople the first time or two, but I was able to quickly give them some assurances that I wasn't doing anything harmful.

Though, I did spend a few minutes wondering what the other nations thought of the near-constant messages. Anyway, after probably tens of millions of mana points wasted, I finally figured it out. And then, it was time.

Like usual, I had the countdown timer until I called my next function in my vision as the System warned everyone of my "dangerous ritual." With a snort, I focused back on the task at hand and drained 5 of my mana batteries dry by going up and touching the part of the array I had designated for that. I converted all that mana to manipulation points, took half a second to steady myself, and then pulled out the Hero's Rapier.

"[[View Item]]!" I called, even as I activated [Appraise Weapon]. The incoming information gave me a migraine near-instantly, but I just pushed through it. I only had a few seconds before the System stole the weapon from me… or so I thought. I was so focused on pulling in all the information and memorizing it that I barely noticed when the function cut off, and I was left there just standing and staring at the weapon.

I blinked a few times as I looked at it, and then, without really thinking about it, I gave it a practice thrust. It promptly fell out of my hand because only [Heroes] can use it, and I felt foolish as I knelt and picked it back up. I'm not sure I got enough info to try to replicate everything it has going on, but I guess I can try? I thought as I stuffed it back into my inventory. Also, the System didn't instantly yoink the weapon. What's up with that? I frowned.

This is the longest Placeholder has been without a [Hero]… at least while the "[Demon Lord] threat" has been alive. Maybe it's because I'm in a pocket dimension right now, and it doesn't realize I'm still here? I made several more conjectures, but I had no idea if any were even close to accurate. Instead, I just had to accept that I wouldn't know and return to working on my sword.

Meanwhile, the OmniverseEngine briefly checked back in on the world designated as "Placeholder" and went through its protocols. It still needed to summon another Hero, but that process was currently blocked as no suitable Heroes stood a chance against the current Demon Lord with the current ruleset.

While that hadn't stopped it previously because it would just timeout the process and send whatever heroic prospect it was currently reviewing, that had apparently caused several complaints to be raised by various admins across the omniverse. One rare System-wide patch later, and the process for pulling Heroes from feeder worlds had been updated to their satisfaction. So, with an automated version of a shrug, it attempted the process again, failed again, and then started to wrap things up.

As for the Hero weapon being in the possession of the [Demon Lord], that wasn't a blocker at all. The weapon would make its way to the next Hero wherever it happened to be… even if it was in the inventory of someone with System-level write protection. The System would review the situation again once some more potential heroes became available, but if it had the capacity for worry, it would have been doing so at that point. The Demon Lord was allowed far too much time unchecked.

Instead, that just gave it a prompt that it should review #ERRORADMINNOTFOUND and possibly assign more demerits. They had truly not done a good job of balancing the world of Placeholder.

Unknowing of the System's ambivalence, I continued walking on eggshells as I used [[View Item]]. I was sure there would be a patch, a new [Hero], or something every time I studied the Hero's Rapier, but nothing ever came. Honestly, it would have been better for me if something had. My nerves were getting shot waiting for the other shoe to drop. Anyway, I used [[View Item]] about eight times before I was confident that I understood the deluge of information I was getting, and then I had my next challenge.

Making enchantments for Extra damage to Angels, Heroes, and bosses. The boss one was the easiest by far since it was already on the Hero's Rapier. Unfortunately, that didn't make it easy. As far as I could tell, all of the enchantments on the Hero's Rapier were done at a higher System level and not with runes like a normal person would use. And to make matters worse, I couldn't just edit an item and put a copy of the enchant on there. …

Well, I figured I could, but I estimated that would take approximately 5gr, or to spell out my wonky unit of measurement, 5 giga-restarts; enough mana to cast the [Restart] ritual 5, 000, 000 times. And that was assuming that I was even allowed to use [[Edit Item]]. While I had been able to call any function that I could figure out so far, I had to assume that the OmniverseEngine had at least some kind of permissions and safeguards to it.

I mean, I hoped it didn't because that would make it really easy to take down, just figure out the equivalent of "rm -rf / [1]" and let her rip. However, I had to assume that since Admin had complained about some type of write-protection it wouldn't be quite that simple. Anyway, to get back on track, I had several very difficult enchantments to figure out… and the most difficult one was still not even on the list.

Specifically, it was the shenanigans that allowed the Hero's Rapier to also be the Hero's Sword or the Hero's Bow… I was also interested in its ability to magically warp to its next wielder when the previous one died, but that was much more intractable than all of the other enchantments.

The only good news was that all of my studies of pocket dimensions and accidental duplication of Kerby meant that I got a theoretical enchantment figured out that would basically let me stuff multiple swords worth of enchantments into a single item… at the cost of exponentially increasing the mana cost. Fortunately, I had kept up with making my mana-gathering arrays, so I was more than good for it.

The better news was that all of the messages about my dangerous rituals had likely lulled the world into a false sense of security with them, so having one longer one didn't make things more likely that they would suddenly find me. The bad news… came as I was nearing the end of the forging process.

I slammed my hammer down onto the glowing metal for what felt like the millionth time as I tried to keep the huge amount of mana I was shoving into it in check. Just a few more minutes, and then it will be ready. Then I need to check if I hit level 10 in [Enchanter] or [Weaponsmith] to see if I can get- A flash of light cut off my thoughts. Before me, and mirroring my look of extreme confusion, was a certain archangel of Placeholder.

"I know not how you summoned me," Mishael stated gravely.

"But your vile plan ends here." I looked down at the forging process that would likely annihilate my entire island if it was interrupted and then back up at the archangel.

"Frick," was all I could say as his sword lit on fire with a holy flame. [1] Rm -rf / - rm = remove. -rf = recursive, forced mode. / = start at the top directory. Taken together this Linux command is basically "delete every file that I have access to on the entire system without asking for confirmation."