Chương 27: Omnimancer 22: Power Base

The first thing to go was the endless stone halls that made the den a cold and depressing labyrinth. Jax placed his hand against the frigid wall and fired an undercharged pulse of [Lesser Force Blast], checking the thickness of the stone. It was a bit like using a knock on a wooden wall to see if it was hollow… but with magic, courtesy of the School of Force.

While Jax didn't doubt it'd be useful in combat, and the School unlock bonus that added a stun effect to every spell he fired in any school was certainly a perk, its true worth shone in interior remodeling.

"Rek na'thar wak!" The blast of pure energy that left Jax's hand was incomparably stronger, and he watched with fascination as the wall was blown apart, sending smaller chunks of stone flying. As well as mortar dust that filled his lungs, but Jax didn't let that diminish the sense of sheer power that came with the ability to send literally anything flying.

"Still can't believe you're just blowing up walls like it's nothing," Tala managed to sputter between coughs.

"It's not nothing," Jax said, grinning as he wiped dust from his face and flashed her a thumbs up.

"It's home improvement!" Now, while blowing down walls might have seemed like a great way to trigger a collapse, flattening himself and Tala, the builders of this place had selected a different, much darker stone for load-bearing walls. Possibly basalt, and while Jax was no expert, it seemed like far stronger stuff than the limestone which was used for most of the Den. Upon closer inspection, the darker ones were also quite a bit thicker, supporting other load-bearing structures on the floor above.

Once he spotted those, it became clear where Jax could remodel and where he should avoid.

"Home improvement…" Tala deadpanned, but she couldn't quite hide the twitch of her lips. She'd been doing more of that almost-smiling thing lately. While she hadn't quite opened up to him yet, Jax would take all the progress he could get. Especially considering how skittish she'd been. As for why he was currently demolishing walls?

That would be because the Dead Hands' former smuggling den had been a maze of identical-looking passages, so dark and labyrinthine that he'd gotten himself lost more than once in those first few days. As Tala had explained, that was the point. Harder for an intruder to get at anything important when they couldn't even find their way around. And while that might have been just fine for a clandestine smuggling operation, it made for a god-awful place to actually live, let alone establish as a base of operations.

A base he hoped would soon become a powerhouse in Takora. He really needed it to be if he had any hope of being prepared for when the timer ran out and his power became public knowledge. Because as great as being strong alone was, Jax was well aware that he wasn't invincible. Fundamentally, he was about as physically strong as any human. As vulnerable as anyone to assassination by jealous Mancers or criminal cartels fearing a new power. But if he had a whole faction backing him up? A powerful one?

That changed things. And while Tala was busy working her magic, sowing seeds for the Moonfire deception that was to be their stopgap to give them time to recruit enough people to stand on their own legs, such disguises weren't worked in a day. What better opportunity to work on the base in the meantime? Because if Jax had any hope of recruiting self-respecting Mancers, having rodents running around in every dark corner felt like a pretty great way to ensure he never did.

All perfectly valid and respectable reasons to renovate, Jax thought, nodding wisely to himself. But fuck it… who am I kidding? He just wanted a nice home and a comfortable bed. Was that too much to ask? Despite this, Tala had grown more and more irritable with every hole he patched—and he'd patched them all, thanks to the ultimate rat hole specialist around.

Unlike the incompetent so-called "professionals" back on Earth who sealed homes for a living, Tala actually knew every entrance and exit and regularly used them to scurry around in her rat form. Which was, of course, why she'd been so alarmed at him closing them. She'd gotten him to promise to leave a few open under the understanding that she'd monitor them and keep the other rodents out.

"What's the plan for this room?" Tala asked, picking up a chunk of rubble and tossing it into the growing pile. A pile that Jax would conveniently lob through a Farcaster portal to dispose of. He'd never have guessed the ultimate transportation ability would also be the world's best trash disposal mechanism. Garbage companies on Earth would swoon with envy.

"Thought we could expand it into the living area," Jax said, gesturing at the space beyond.

"Open it up to make it feel less like a dungeon and more like a home you'd want to live in."

"But people did live here," Tala said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"And they were okay with this?" It genuinely surprised Jax that Hakan hadn't done up the place with how flush the Dead Hands were. That much was proven true when Jax broke his way into their vault. Which was more of an ordinary room that concealed their vast riches of gold and silver, rather than any beefy security door. To say nothing of their wealth in contraband. Between that and Nimashi's copper hoard, he'd amassed quite the wealth in both goods and coin. She shrugged.

"When you grow up with nothing, anything with a roof works." There was something in her voice… not quite bitterness, but a resignation that made Jax pause. He glanced at her to find her staring off into the distance. How much of her life had been spent in places like this? Or worse?

"Well," he said carefully, "now we're going to make it actually nice. Not just a place with a roof over our heads, but actually comfortable." Tala's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Why do you care so much? I can't imagine the mountains were any more comfortable."

"Well, no, the mountains were…" He trailed off, not quite meeting her gaze.

"Harsh, as you might imagine. All the more reason I want a real home, so long as we're here. I just want a simple life, y'know? Doing good where I can. Enjoying the finer things in life," he replied. Right before firing another blast into a wall, sending them both into coughing fits. Again.

"Hey Tala, catch!" The Skinwalker froze in her tracks as a massive white object hurled towards her, colliding with her face and eliciting a muffled shriek of surprise. Jax burst out laughing.

"A… a pillow!?" she cried, flushing red in indignation and embarrassment.

"Not just any pillow!" Jax declared smugly.

"Goose down! Probably the best you're gonna get around here." Or, whatever the equivalent of geese was in this world, Jax thought. The white feathers certainly looked similar. Tala looked at the pillow, then at Jax, and then back at the pillow.

"You can't be serious." If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"Dead serious," Jax replied without any trace of emotion.

"As dead as my hands…" Tala stared at him blankly.

"Get it? Like the Dead Hands?"

"Yes!" Tala hissed, her cheeks reddening as she shirked back.

"But you can't just give this to me!"

"And why not?" Jax asked.

"Everything in here is mine to give as I please, is it not?"

"Well, yes, but why? There can't be many of these just lying around!"

"That's the first one I've found so far," Jax nodded.

"It's for you."

"But why? Why wouldn't you keep it for yourself?"

"Because I want you to have it? Look, it's yours. If you don't want it, just throw it out or something," Jax said, knowing fully well Tala wouldn't dare.

"Never!" she snapped, clutching the pillow to her chest like it was a life jacket, which made Jax smile. Her scurrying off, as though before Jax could change his mind made him outright laugh. It took another day to finish opening up the main floor, reducing a dozen cramped rooms into one large, open living area with several smaller chambers branching off the sides. The work was both exhausting and yet deeply satisfying.

Which made it pretty analogous to mountaineering, They fell into a rhythm where Jax would blast down the walls he'd marked as safe, and Tala would haul the debris away in her wheelbarrow, grumbling the whole time, though Jax noted that she never actually refused to do anything asked of her. Then they'd both stop for lunch that Jax whipped up in their remodeled and newly expanded kitchen—a meal Tala awaited with giddy anticipation even if she'd never admit it—before planning the next phase.

During that time, Jax had learned a lot from her. About Takora and its customs. About what it took to actually make the city think they were Moonfire, and most importantly, interesting details about Gifts, shards, and leveling. For one, he'd learned that one needed either a Gift or Spell Shards to use magic. School Shards were a bit different. If you picked one up on some mountain but either didn't have a Gift or your Gift didn't have any free School slots left, it would be unusable.

There were more restrictions too. Like how your Gift's rarity determined the number and maximum tier of the Schools and spell shards you could learn. [Common] Gifts only let you learn one to two Schools, max, and only Tier I. [Uncommon] was two to three, depending on the individual Gift, and could learn up to Tier II Schools while [Rare] allowed you three to five Schools and up to Tier III and so on.

While Tala had the [Rare] Skinwalker Gift, she hadn't gotten the customary [Shapeshifter] School to go with it, as apparently she hadn't gained enough favor with Luxor to be that blessed. On wild peaks, you gained favor by killing monsters on the way to the summit. On settled peaks, the situation was much more muddled, with favor being somewhat correlated to how much you'd given back to the society that resided there.

A far murkier concept that nobody had ever quite figured out, despite plenty of attempts to game the system. Tala, understandably, hadn't had a whole lot of opportunity to contribute to her society, so what she'd gotten was actually just her [Skinwalk - Rat] Spell Shard that let her shapeshift into a rat, and not a full-on School. That meant one ability instead of a full suite like Jax had access to. It was one reason she was so belittled by her clan.

For her particular transformation, yes, but also its restrictions. Aside from a minor Vitality boost, she couldn't augment her strength or speed or talk in her rat form as the others in her clan who'd received full Gifts could, for example. Even still, that was better than what some people got. Apparently, it was possible to get a Gift without a single Spell or School Shard in some rare cases. Essentially useless aside from some minor buffs.

Incidentally, there was no upper limit to how many Spell Shards you could have, so long as the spell was at or below the Gift's maximum Tier. Most of that, while nice to know, didn't really apply to Jax. With a [Transcendent] Tier class, there was no upper limit to how many Schools Jax could learn or Tier restriction at all. What interested him more was the confirmation of what he'd suspected until now. That while Schools always came with a basic set of spells, that wasn't everything.

There were more of them out there, waiting to be found on peaks. Many more, it seemed. That explained why he only had a handful of spells in each school right now, and honestly that had him salivating to go out and collect more. What incredible spells did Space and Time have that were currently missing from his spell shop? Or multischool shards, for that matter?

As for why he'd picked up such a paltry number of points during his village raid prior to arriving at Takora, it seemed the number of points you gained were directly proportional to the difference in level. If you happened to kill a beast much higher level than you? Congratulations, you'd be drowned in Lux Bux. It turned out the opposite was equally true.

Given Jax's current level of 1299—a level he'd learned even Higher Races rarely ever got to—even an ordinarily fearsome level 100 monster was far, far beneath him, the rewards appropriately miniscule.

"You know what this place needs?" Jax said one afternoon, surveying their handiwork. The space was open now, but just as bare and dingy as it was before.

"Rugs. Lots of rugs. And lights." Tala's eyes narrowed in what Jax had come to learn was her default reaction to most things.

"Why?"

"Because the stone's cold. Not to mention ugly. Rugs will brighten up the space, give it some much-needed warmth. And make it cozier."

"Cozier?" she repeated skeptically, like it was an alien concept.

"Trust me on this."

"I don't trust you!" she cried, jumping back a whole step. Despite that, her eyes had nearly bulged out of their sockets when he'd brought out the large rugs sitting in the rather vast inventory the Dead Hands kept. Old and faded though they might have been, the intricate design work and the bright golds, greens, blues, and reds livened up the place in a way few other things ever could. Jax stood back, hands on his hips.

"See? Told you."

"It's just a rug," Tala muttered.

"Uh-huh," Jax replied, smiling at the look of wonder in her eyes she was miserably failing to hide.

"And it's not just a rug," Jax said.

"It's the first rug. I want to put a lot more down." Fire burned in Tala's eyes, despite her silence.

"Tell you what," Jax said, barely concealing the smirk on his face.

"You know how the Dead Hands stored stuff better than me. Why don't I work on the lighting while you scrounge up more."

"Really?" she asked with just a bit too much enthusiasm, before coughing and adding, "Sure, I guess." Over the next hours, Tala raided the inventory for more, quickly becoming the decider of which rug went where. A forest green runner for the hallway to the kitchen. A thick woolen rug with geometric patterns for the space near what would become the seating area. A small, ornate piece that she claimed "wouldn't have sold for much" for the entrance.

Sometimes, they even piled rugs on one another, just because they could.

"Where are you even getting all these?" Jax asked as she unrolled the twentieth rug. The stores he'd looked through earlier hadn't had this much.

"Dead Hands had a lot of inventory they never moved," Tala said.

"They kept that stuff in a separate back room. Wouldn't dare steal from them normally, but well… Figure they wouldn't miss it, seeing as they're, you know. Dead."

"Fair point," Jax chuckled as she carefully positioned the rug, adjusting it three times before she was satisfied. It was good to see her taking such care with each placement, going the extra mile to think about how they fit together. She was making decisions about what would look good, not just what was functional.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were into this."

"I'm not!" she denied, but just a little too quickly. Unfortunately, furniture was a bit harder to come by. The Dead Hands weren't in the business of smuggling bulky furniture with how difficult it was to transport. An especially significant consideration considering they'd have to haul it off a literal mountain to get it anywhere. Nor could he simply waltz into a carpenter's and order two dozen pieces without raising questions about who was buying and where it was going.

So Tala suggested buying through made-up proxies from different vendors, spreading the purchases out to avoid arousing suspicion.

"You're surprisingly good at this cloak-and-dagger stuff," Jax said as she explained her plan.

"I learned from the best." There was a bitter edge to her voice.

"The Dead Hands weren't exactly good to me, but they knew how to stay hidden."

"Scary to think of all the mistakes I'd have made if you weren't around," Jax said. She looked at him, something unreadable in her expression.

"You really think we can pull this off?" she asked, and Jax got the distinct impression she wasn't talking about the remodel.

"I do," Jax said with a nod.

"We already are. If we can trick the rest of the underworld in this city just a bit longer, we should be able to shore up enough of a power base that no one will question us."

"Hope you're right," Tala said, ruffling her hair.

"If not…"

"It all falls apart like a house of cards," Jax replied.

"I know. I have a plan." The beginnings of one, anyway. If you couldn't build an organization full of underworld badasses… fake one with absolute, overwhelming power.