POV Jacob

  Once everyone had permanently marked their skin with our accomplishments, we moved on to the next order of business, preparations for the coming event. There were multiple things to discuss: the mutants only a few miles away, our training, defences, the uni safe zone, and whether we should try to make contact with any other survivors in our local area.

  It was a lot to cover within two days, so we did our best to delegate the tasks. Mia would use her new scent lure to capture and control bugs, to monitor our general area and keep an eye out for anything or anyone that could be useful. Meanwhile, her spiders would weave their webbing between houses to reinforce our limited defences.

  If the harpy were to be seen in the area, we would attempt to bait her into a trap to learn their intentions and buy us some time before we were discovered. As I was best suited to restraining creatures, live or dead, I would be the bait if the need arose. In the meantime, I would be working to improve everyone's weapons and armour, now that I had more than a few hours and was under less threat of being eaten alive. While I lived my nerd fantasy of becoming a magic blacksmith, Ava, Ella, Sam and Noah would reinforce our rather lacklustre walls with material that they found and continue their training.

  In the afternoon, Noah and I would get started on the feral claw learning disk while the others would try their luck at the breathing technique. We split into two groups in the hopes that, once we had the basics down ourselves, we could help train the others up faster. After taking lessons from the learning disks, we would do our adaptive training, followed by resistance training with Mia and Sam.

  We also discussed what to do if people from the sky lurker came looking to work together or even join us. We decided it would be on a case-by-case basis: larger groups would be kept at an arm's length and be open to trade, but individuals might be able to move close to us if they wanted and could answer some questions. To do this, Mia would have a pet monitor the meeting point every day at 12:00 for a few days to spot anyone who read the messages I carved into the tarmac. She would also keep an eye out for any promising individuals in the local area that we could make use of. Overall, Mia had the busiest schedule and was removed from the general chore list, but she said her main body would try to stay up to date on online forums before the last of the power went out and the globe was plunged back into the dark ages.

  It was one hell of a busy schedule, but we had a lot to fit into two days without actually knowing what we were preparing for. So strengthening our foundation was a safe bet. With a basic plan of action in place, we got to work only an hour after the store opened. Mia set up her scent trap while the rest of us improved my basic workstation in the neighbour's garage. It was a messy affair of haphazardly placed tables, benches, and tools, along with any materials and spare weapons we had lying around, but it was fit for purpose.

  With the new workshop fully stocked, the others left to gather material for the walls and do their ability training, leaving me to stare at the old weapons and random items with a contemplative expression. I had ideas on how to improve my crafting. But to do it, I had to make steel. I could fold and bend materials to create stronger alloys, but I didn't know which one was best. The stainless steel of the old world, or mixing monster parts with metal and hoping for the best. This naturally required a more ethical brand of testing than I was used to. Still, I quickly got to work trying to find out whether the folding helped realign the material's structure, making it stronger without the heating process.

  By closing my eyes and experiencing the world only through my phase-change abilities, I was able to perceive glimpses of the metal's structure as jumbled blobs, allowing me to tweak my process and slowly but surely improve my understanding of the materials I was working with. Through this method, I discovered that the metal did indeed become stronger through repeated bending and folding, despite the lack of heat, as the structure aligned. Now all that was left was to create an alloy. If I remember correctly, and that's a big If, high carbon steel was used in swords and chitin was partly made of carbon. I have loads of steel lying around my workshop, along with seemingly magic chitin armour from a variety of monsters to play around with, but little in the way of iron.

  But with my questionable memory, I didn't quite trust myself to waste our limited supply of chitin we'd managed to gather, so I went to someone with a less messed-up brain who could retain basic knowledge. It did not take long to track Ella down and fix up the wall with the new materials while I asked for her opinion. After a quick talk, I found myself back in my workshop, trying to guess how much 0.95% carbon was and lamenting the minor problem that I didn't have much pure iron to even make the new steel. Most of the scrap we had was already steel, just not made for weapons and armour or imbued with the chitin of terrifying monsters. Not having much choice, I just decided to make a bunch of small samples and test them. But I still didn't know how to work out percentages, because, let's face it, I am kind of… academically stupid.

  These little questions had me rubbing together my two remaining brain cells and making an old set of balance scales to help me measure and calculate the percentage of materials needed. Oddly enough, my half-baked plan did not work, and I became even more confused before giving up my stubbornness and leaving the workshop to hunt down Noah, who was making a basic dojo, to ask for his help with maths.

  After a few minor adjustments that definitely weren't a complete rework of the measurements while I sat around questioning how I managed to pass any maths test, we finally had 0.95% of Brood Mother chitin to roughly 5cm cubed of steel. All that was left was to mix them together by sprinkling in small chunks while I folded, whisked, and mixed the semi-liquid metallic substance to make high-carbon steel, which I mapped out with my powers and noted how it should feel, helping me make multiple varieties of the manufactured steel.

  By now, I only had four and a half hours before lunch, but progress was progress. But that didn't mean I couldn't outsource some of the tests to split my focus. This train of thought inevitably led to Noah hitting multiple variations of metallic bowls with his sledgehammer and spear to find the most resilient material combination.

  With that happening in the background, I quickly got to work on my other projects. A few of my tests showed that I couldn't do much to the flexi metal without losing its flexibility, except for folding it a few times to make it harder.

  Without the ability to map out its structure, it would have taken a fair few attempts of trial and error to figure out. Instead, it only took me three tries to find the sweet spot, and then just over an hour to replicate the process with the rest of the flexi metal.

  By this point, Noah had completed beating up the inanimate objects. He concluded that the steel with 0.75% Brood Mother and 0.30% Rock Worm chitin was the strongest without becoming brittle, making it the ideal ratio for the larger items I had planned. With the materials prepped and my mind filled with blacksmithing whimsy, I called my friends over one by one to mould their new and improved armour around their bodies. It consisted of a folded flexi metal frame with high-carbon steel padding covering areas that wouldn't interfere with movement. They were then each given a high-carbon steel knife and a short sword, with handles wrapped in leather from a biker jacket. It took a while to get the balance right for each individual, but I was able to use their old weapons as references and could modify them on the fly to fit our needs.

  After the blades, they each got a spear with a high-carbon steel tip and a handle of condensed oak wood from a few tables, painted in liquid flexi metal. Condensed oak did cause a few problems at first, but it was nothing that beating your slightly liquified wood with a big ass hammer couldn't solve. Sadly, like a depressingly high number of problems in my life, a big ass hammer didn't help me make high-carbon steel arrowheads for Ella or a mace with an electric crystal core for Noah.

  I did debate making Noah a war hammer, but Ella, ever the history buff, said a mace is a better weapon unless you are facing something with armour. Considering I was adding a magical gem that spat out lightning at people, Noah and I both agreed that a faster mace was a better delivery system than a war hammer.

  But Noah had requests. He didn't just want a spiked ball for combat or self-defence, he wanted something that could kill. If he was going to be on the front lines, he wanted to be able to put down whatever threat he came across.

  "Bit of a tall order for an aspiring blacksmith with the combined total of two days' work experience, I haven't even had a chance to look at the enchanting thingy yet. But I imagine you knew that. How has it been treating you?" I ask him, while working on the steel-fanged mace blades that would surround the electrical gem, before clarifying, "The red." I look up from my work to see Noah fiddling with the bracelet with a pained look, the skin beneath rubbed raw with signs of bleeding and a few scabs.

  "What even is this stuff? It burns me while getting stabbed does almost nothing, I have to switch wrists each day, but even then…What is it?" He asks again, letting the toxic metal fall from his fingers and press against his bare skin with a wince.

  "Not sure, an experiment gone wrong that I haven't been able to replicate yet, worsens wounds but doesn't affect the dead, burns on contact but has no heat. I don't have much left, and I don't know how it will react with the magic gem nonsense." I send the yellow glowing gem an accusatory look.

  "So you can't make the mace from it?" He concludes solemnly, but I just snort. What was the point of powers if I couldn't get creative in ways to kill people? "What about the guns or something…" He starts, but I just wave him off.

  "Boom sticks and trying to reverse engineer the magic stuff is tomorrow's problem, and they are already annoyed with the increased workload." I tap my fingers against the cool metal in a rhythmless tune, my digits dancing along the blade's edge before grabbing a few scraps of rose steel and wraith sinew. I melt them into a combined sludge, mixing and folding the material in the palm of my hand before smearing the red liquid onto the blades like paint. 'Why didn't I do this before?'

  From there, it only took two minutes to assemble the seven blades to form a cage of red stained steel that housed the electrical gem, with a few spacers wedged between each blade to keep the mace in shape. The final stage of attaching the wooden cad handle was trivial, and I quickly handed the fruits of my labour to its owner with a sense of curiosity.

  Noah watched the process in silence and took the offered handle with a "Thank you" and a nod of appreciation before giving it a few test swings.

  "Do you know how to use the gem?" I ask curiously, only for him to pause and stare intently at the ball of crystallised electricity.

  "As it happens, I do not." He responds as confusion flickers across his face. It took a while to figure it out, the rest of my limited crafting time, in fact, but I consider it worth it. Not only did it help Noah, but it also gave me a chance to figure out the magic crystal in a way I hope will be applicable in the future. To use the gem, one had to connect to it, focusing on it, within the core of the mace, until something in the mind just clicked, like becoming aware of an optical illusion's true form. It was tricky to make, but once you became aware of the connection, it was hard to ignore. At least while you help the gem and the weapon it was attached to. Once you let go, it took a few seconds to regain the connection by touching the gem. When activated, a few sparks ripped free from the metal, dancing through the air with a dull buzz like a live wire.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  With the prototype completed and my time dedicated to crafting finished, we both left the workshop to join the others for a quick lunch, where Mia commissioned numbered tokens to help her keep track of who was who on her ever-growing map. An easy enough request that I was able to finish as we cooked, ate and cleaned up after lunch. Her map was coming along nicely, and she had identified a few people of interest and groups in general, but I only really took note of the person described as talking to plants and their partner, who could see more. The terminology was vague; people don't walk around giving detailed accounts of their powers in a normal conversation. But it sounded useful for my future projects.

  After lunch, I helped fuse the newer parts of the wall, smoothing out the climbing holds or point of leverage and making sure everything was connected before Noah and I headed to the makeshift dojo made from an odd mixture of recently fused-together yoga mats and towels. A few stretches and a brief warm-up later, I powered up the learning disk to get us started. The device itself was an odd contraption of an unknown grey substance that could comfortably sit in the palm of my hand. Its smooth, unblemished texture was only broken by the small indent in the middle, which, when pressed, would cause the AI to appear as an orange, semi-transparent humanoid hologram that was only 50cm tall.

  Upon first activation, it displayed an introductory holographic video that stretched to fill the whole room, as if it were trying to advertise itself to a potential buyer with an immersive surround visual marketing scheme. The orange tinted video showed off the feral claw where blurred-out humanoids twisted and turned at impossible angles, brutalising multiple other trained fighters at once. Another video showed a one-on-one fight where the fighter completely dominated another combatant, making them scream in pain as their vitals were targeted and weaknesses exploited. But the really interesting part came after: videos of running on water, jumping and walking on air, using nothing but your bare hands to tear apart steel with a single clawed swipe, and bloodshot eyes that could see the inner workings of the body.

  As it turned out, the Feral Claw was a highly violent martial art that focused on lethality and results. It showed brief glimpses of using knives, swords and bare hands to take down ferocious monsters and humanoids alike, all the while showcasing the thrill of the hunt. I had no idea if we would be able to complete these superhuman feats, but if the learning disk's little advertisement campaign was to be believed, then this small device contained knowledge worth far more than the 275 points I paid for it.

  Not that I was complaining, just very suspicious of the entire ordeal. Despite my paranoia, this was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we confirmed our desire to start training, and the small hologram began our first lesson. Mostly consisting of tearing our bodies apart with intense stretches and exercises I had never even heard of, that made it feel like every muscle fiber in my body was about to fail, with a few Katas thrown in for good measure.

  It was an arduous task, but despite the pain, or perhaps because of it, I pushed on along with Noah as we encouraged each other while simultaneously cursing the AI as it displayed holographic projections displaying the stretch or exercise we were to follow. It would then scan us as we tried our best to follow along with the impossible movements, tell us what we were doing wrong, and provide detailed illustrations on how to improve, which mostly just highlighted our lack of skill.

  But as I was trying to fold myself in half and feeling the deep pain of trying to push past my range of motion, I had a thought. "Hey, Noah", I managed to grunt out.

  He gives a short, pained "What" as a response, his crystalline cells appreciating the unrealistic stretches even less than my own.

  "We got healing and adapting on our side. Why don't we just force each other into these positions until we become more flexible?" I asked the athlete in the hopes my idea had merit.

  The room falls silent for a moment as even the AI appears to pause and consider my question. "That, that might actually work. But it will hurt like a bitch." He slowly unfolds himself to look at me, but I just send him a deadpan look in response to his warning of pain.

  He snorts at my expression before saying, "Yeah, I still recommend we get some painkillers in our system and something to bite on."

  'Well, that doesn't bode well; painkillers don't work on me anymore. Guess numbing my nerves is classed as a negative effect.' Not that I could tell Noah that, of course, so I just settled on filling one of those hydration backpacks with a straw attached to a bladder full of healing tonic and stuck the rubbery tube in my mouth next to a wedge of leather. I told Noah it also had painkillers in it, and luckily, he seemed content to just start drinking whisky instead of asking to share.

  What followed had to be one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. Physiotherapy massages were always painful in a unique kind of way, but this dialled it up to eleven. Deep muscles in my legs were pulled and stretched as Noah forced me to touch my toes while I frantically sucked the healing tonic through the straw. But it worked, somehow. I don't know how our biology interacts with our god-given adaptivity, but it doesn't seem to take offence at our experiments. Which was great, until I realised what would come next.

  An hour of deep muscle and ligament pain, our brains produced to stop us from overextending our old, fragile bodies. We each took turns getting into the ridiculous poses and positions the AI projected, while the other forced us to stretch further than we previously thought possible. We weren't exactly breaking anything, so the healing tonic didn't lose its effectiveness until Noah's 10th pose, which is when I also faked the healing tonic's inability to heal me any further.

  We both lay on the floor panting for a few minutes before continuing our two-and-a-half-hour session, and we finished it off with a spar using only the two Katas we learned, which ended in a draw. This might have made me feel proud if not for the fact that it was most certainly due to my enhanced stamina rather than any real skill, as Noah was wheezing after a full day of activity and intense workouts.

  Luckily for Noah's lungs, we had a short break before Sam and Ava would join us for adaptive training. We spent it laughing together at our own expense and debating whether we could make steampunk wings using Ava and her water as a perpetual motion machine. Or more accurately, I tried to convince Noah that it was an excellent idea while he tried to explain physics to me. Throughout our conversation, Noah would occasionally zone out and stare off into the distance for a few moments with a thousand-yard stare, but each time he would snap out of it and continue lecturing me about thermal dynamics or something equally beyond my pay grade. By the fifth time he zoned out, I realised something was wrong. I was about to ask him when Ava arrived with Sam following behind, prompting us to begin our friendly self-help program of self-harm and assault that was fun for the whole makeshift dysfunctional family, pushing the problem to the back of my mind.

  As per tradition we started by injecting venom deep into our veins before vigorous exercise, another dose of venom followed by sharp objects resistant training. After that slightly bloody and nausea-inducing affair, we switched to another type of spider venom and then proceeded to beat each other into a bloody pulp. Needless to say, a few safe words were uttered during our bonding time. Which is to say it fucking hurt, and Ella's healing ability was a Godsend of chaotic wheels and luck that brought us back up to shape to start again. This went on for just over an hour before Ella gave us our final healing treatment, and we queued up to have our minds and will tested while Mia violated our brain and Sam our senses.

  Luckily, Mia went easy on me during our mental sparring because of the whole 'almost driving myself insane' thing. While it did hurt my pride, my limited sanity was thankful for the slower pace set by our friendly neighbourhood hive mind.

  But the training wasn't over. While Mia could enter and manipulate our minds, Sam could alter our senses by infusing us with his energy and guiding it through our bodies. So this particular exercise was built around us trying to fend off Sam's advances, not only to develop Sam's skill but also to give us experience against any powers that may try to invade our bodies.

  It wasn't as difficult as Mia's training, but it was significantly more physically taxing, leaving me in a cold sweat after fending off an invasive power that tried to rob me of my senses and leave me under Sam's tender mercy. Thankfully, Sam didn't have any intention of violating me even after my hearing was removed in a sacrificial play to keep my eyesight.

  By the end of the session, my senses were back to normal and even improved in some aspects, allowing me to work on my chore list. It was my turn to cook dinner after all, and the honey-grilled chicken wasn't going to cook itself.

  Interlude 4 Alchemical mattresses

  POV Mathéo

  Location: Abbeville, France

  Challenge Rewards:

  Survive: 10 points

  Kill a Cave Crawler: 15 Points

  Travel 161 kilometres of The Endless Caves: Calculating - 161 kilometres run while stationary, 60 Kilometers of the cave explored, 50% points rewarded in participation award: 50 Points

  Discover And Survive The 4/11 Creatures Of The Caves: 40 Points

  Kill A Brood Mother: N/A

  Kill a Sky Lurker: N/A

  Total: 115 Points Rewarded

  'A participation award? They mocked me? They mocked Mathéo? They gave me this power, and I have risen it to heights most could never dream of!' I scowled at the display in contempt as the refugees around me shuffled quietly through the shoddy safe zone they had stuffed into the primary school. 'I could have made a team to do all the challenges if these idiots weren't so useless!'

  "They're lucky I'm even here to help protect them," I mutter, and readjust myself on my overly stuffed mattress, which shows my status above the flimsy cot using simpletons. But it wasn't all bad for them; I had graced a few lucky individuals in return for some of their crystals.

  Crystals I could now sell, I reminded myself with glee before quickly finding the relevant tab, cashing in the crystals and looking at the receipt with a grin. I doubt any solo combatants saw such high numbers next to the little monster depicting images.

  Receipt Breakdown:

  Dark Flyers - 20 point value

  Long Tongues - 32 point value

  Cave Crawlers - 40 points value

  Giant Spiders - 26 points value

  Total: 118 Points Earned

  I looked at the 233 points total smugly and changed the display to the buying tab. The set items looked useless. 'If someone couldn't speak French, they aren't worth talking to and shouldn't be in France in the first place. The tokens might be useful, but I planned to receive money, not give it away. But some cash on hand couldn't hurt…' I left it for the moment, looked through the weekly items, and was disappointed to find a bottle of shampoo and a pine cone, but the last option made me smile. 'The gods must have been impressed to offer me such a reward for my efforts.'

  The [Redacted] alchemical grimoire of the fifth sage of [Redacted]: Contains a small subspace within a detailed book that depicts alchemical formulas. The book's subspace contains equipment and materials to help its user start their journey through the mysteries of alchemy. This item is on a limited first-week sale, and the odds of it appearing again on this planet are extremely low.

  Cost: 200 points

  My smile grows as the small 17-page leather-bound book appears in my hands and I look through the recipes. Healing potions, stamina potions, temporary speed and strength enhancements. I skimmed the book with glee until I reached the last page, and my eyes widened as I saw the detailed diagram of a crystalline bottle containing a swirling mass of vibrant purple liquid. I read its description, and my smile turns predatory as a plan begins to form in my mind.

  'With this fueling my endeavours, they will finally know Mathéo, and they will finally find their place at my feet.' A laugh rumbles up through my chest and fills the air, but I ignore the looks the lessers give me. I had work to do.