“Yup. I mean, I’m level 9 already, so that’s why. I should reach level 10 on Friday if everything works out. As I said, my uncle is supporting me a ton in this process.”

  “Huh …” Vanda responded quietly. “Even so, 1.8 is super impressive. Is it even possible to get that without awakening?”

  Ryan thought about it for a few moments but wasn’t able to come up with any examples off the top of his head. “There must have been a few people across history that awakened with pretty high stats … 1.8 is pretty close to that superhuman level, but I think it’s still possible. Just, like … not very easy, you know?”

  “Well, duh. Obviously, it’s not easy.” Vanda sighed. “But still, it’s pretty insane to see. Plus, you’re barely even looking at it … Is that also part of your insane dexterity?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No, that part is mostly my intuition. Now that I know what to do with each piece, it’s pretty easy to put together. Plus, I just kind of instinctively know what part I’m holding when I pick it up, and I also instinctively know where the next part that I’m looking for is, so … yeah.”

  “Wow, that’s … kind of bullshit, what the hell?” Vanda laughed. “Awakening really just pushes you ahead of us regular folk, huh?”

  Ryan was almost stunned by what Vanda was saying. He couldn’t really say anything to deny that, since it was true that as an Awakened, your life would improve considerably. Whether it was through the increased physical or mental abilities, or because of the societal treatment of Awakeneds, this was something that changed your life in a myriad of ways if you took advantage of it properly.

  Though Ryan felt like the atmosphere had become a bit lighter since he and Vanda had been speaking more casually, that changed again very soon.

  “You know …” he started, “I’m really, really sorry about destroying Energizer. If I could have, I would have tried to save him, but that really wasn’t possible anymore.”

  Vanda looked at Ryan confused, raising an eyebrow. “Where the hell did that come from?”

  “I just figured I should say it. Like, I know that making the showcase thing work properly was important to you. I heard it was pushed back a bit now, but I doubt you’d be able to make a completely new one until then … right?”

  “Well,” Vanda let out, looking back down at the desk. She continued to sort through the pieces as she explained. “Of course I was upset about what happened. But it wasn’t like I was angry at you or anything; that would be insane. I’m more mad at that fucking—”

  Vanda stopped suddenly, trying to speak without sound coming from her mouth. She wanted to say the name of the person who had given her Gaia’s fragment. Of course, Ryan now knew that it was Christopher. But he couldn’t really just say that. Ryan didn’t know what was part of the contract that Vanda really entered and what sort of stipulations Christopher had sneaked into that whole thing. He didn’t want to risk putting Vanda into any danger or drag her into this any more.

  With a frustrated groan, Vanda continued. “I’m mad at that guy. He’s the one that completely fucked everything up. And really, it wouldn’t have actually been that much work to build Energizer again. I had all the notes and blueprints prepared already, but I just wouldn’t have been able to do it until the next day.”

  “Right …”

  “Plus, Modak actually suggested some stuff to me to help improve Energizer’s design. He’s much, much more efficient now, so I can actually get away with using a regular mana battery,” Vanda pointed out smugly. “I wanted to show it to Modak, but he’s been pretty busy recently, huh?”

  “Hah, you can say that again.” Ryan scoffed. “With him working at the Magic Tower now, plus him and Yanna finally dating, he barely has time to hang out lately.”

  Vanda froze up, turning her head toward Ryan. “Excuse me?”

  “Hm?”

  “What did you just say?”

  “About him and Yanna dating?” Ryan asked with a raised eyebrow. “I mean, it’s not that big of a shock. Yeah, it was surprising that it ended up happening so fast. We all thought it would have happened much—”

  “Oh, gods, who gives a shit about that?” With a groan, Vanda rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I meant the Magic Tower bit!”

  Ryan looked at the hobgoblin, surprised. It wasn’t really a secret. In fact, Modak had said he would take full advantage of it in the future. Whether he got to keep working in the Magic Tower after graduation or not, he would plaster Magic Tower Research Team Leader on literally every single application and project he worked on in the future. As he should. But Modak probably just didn’t get to tell everyone around him about it yet. It was pretty sudden, after all.

  “Modak was scouted by the Magic Tower’s mistress and is working on a project now,” Ryan explained. “I don’t know how much I can tell you about that, so just ask him yourself the next time you see him.”

  Vanda’s arms slipped from the table, hanging down her sides. “… He’s working at the Magic Tower? At 18? After our first semester at university? And he was scouted by the Mistress? Seriously?”

  “Yeah … Modak is pretty awesome, isn’t he?” Ryan pointed out, as if he was bragging about his best friend. Though it wasn’t just like that; he was actively bragging about Modak right now. “But it’s just a part-time position.”

  “S-So … he’s working as some research assistant? Or is doing an internship there?” Vanda asked, still confused, but Ryan quickly shook his head.

  “No, actually. He’s the team leader and is researching his own project at the tower.”

  Vanda stared at him with narrowed eyes. “So, you awakened with a unique class, and Modak is a prodigy working at the Magic Tower … Is Silvia the only normal one in your trio?”

  Ryan stayed silent, unsure how much he should share. Though, then again, he was pretty curious about what Vanda’s reaction would be, and he couldn’t hold back his grin as he started to speak. “Well, actually …”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gregor

  Ryan pushed the oiled-up ball joint into place, then used this to connect the right thigh with the right shin. As he did, he glanced over at the hobgoblin sitting next to him.

  “Oh, come on, is that really something to pout about?” Ryan asked with a laugh, but Vanda just glared over at him.

  “I’m not pouting; I’m just … trying to mentally catch up to everything,” she pointed out. “Like, what the hell are you three? A unique class, a prodigal Magic Engineer, and a famous fucking Awakened artist? Seriously?”

  “I mean … she’s not famous for being an Awakened artist yet.”

  “Right … but she’s already a famous artist without even having awakened at that point, so— You know what? Let’s just … move on. This is making me feel kinda crappy.” Vanda groaned, scratching the fur on her nose nervously.

  Ryan raised an eyebrow, feeling that something was a little off. “Is … everything going alright for you?”

  Vanda looked over at him hesitantly, and Ryan soon realized that it might be overstepping some bounds between them. It wasn’t as though they were friends. They were on good terms, obviously, but maybe talking about this kind of thing was still a bit too much right now. But to Ryan’s surprise, Vanda responded anyway.

  “Not really, I guess. Like, yeah, Energizer two point oh is well on his way to being fully finished, tested, and fine-tuned, but I don’t even know if this is going to be useful for anything in the end. Richie basically fully disappeared from the club, so nobody knows if the showcase is actually happening again?”

  Ryan’s hands stopped moving, which they hadn’t at all until now. “What do you mean, he disappeared?”

  “Well, he hasn’t come back at all. He started his job and then dipped,” Vanda explained. “Though I guess that’s not totally true … He did come by once sometime last week, but he seemed so … greasy? I don’t know, like … that kind of ‘Riverian Psycho,’ slicked-back-hair, finance-bro type?”

  “Seriously? Richie?”

  “Right? He so didn’t seem like the type. But I guess he just gets along really well with people at his new job. Plus, it sounded like he’s—” Vanda started but she immediately stopped, clearly against her will. She just wasn’t able to continue talking along the train of thought she wanted to, and Ryan widened his eyes, confused. Though somehow, it seemed like Vanda herself hadn’t noticed that she had mentally drifted off.

  “Excuse me? Richie’s involved with— Wait, do you know what company he started working for?”

  Vanda was taken aback, looking up at Ryan. “Uh … it was Bluesky Industries, I think?”

  Closing his eyes, suppressing a groan, Ryan started tapping his foot on the ground. In itself, there wasn’t anything wrong with that. It wasn’t as though Bluesky was an evil company through and through. There were normal employees and normal projects that were completely unrelated to the White Shadow Society. So, just because Richie was working for Bluesky, that didn’t mean that he was involved in anything sketchy.

  But Ryan’s gut was telling him something different. Especially after that brief call with Richie earlier, he felt like there was something wrong. Of course, he and Richie weren’t close or anything, so it wasn’t as though Ryan had an obligation to help him out or stop him from making mistakes like that, but it still felt off. Really, really off.

  “Is everything okay?” Vanda asked, not sure what was going on with Ryan all of a sudden. He just slowly nodded.

  “Yeah, sorry … I just don’t really like Bluesky all that much. They got really, really annoying when I awakened, and sent this weirdo after me to try and buy my class,” Ryan explained with a long sigh. “I still get daily letters from them, visits at least every other day, and phone calls from random numbers that I’ve blocked a dozen times already.”

  “Oh, gods … That sucks.”

  Ryan nodded and laughed. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  “But … I’m sure Richie isn’t doing that kind of stuff. I mean, he’s a Technomancer, so I’d be a little shocked if that’s what they used him for,” Vanda pointed out, and Ryan nodded. Of course, there was no way that was the case. But there were plenty of other shady parts of Bluesky that Ryan now knew about.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Ryan responded, hoping to move on from this conversation. He didn’t want to drag Vanda into all of this any more than she already had been in the first place. But knowing that Richie worked for Bluesky now was definitely useful. Maybe Runar could have someone look into that a bit more. Maybe it had something to do with why Richie had sounded so weird during that call earlier.

  For now, Ryan focused on finishing Gregor’s body. That was what Vanda was there for in the first place, so he shouldn’t waste her time too much. He was lucky she even had the time to come and help him out at a moment’s notice.

  Through some awkward silence, Vanda continued to explain where all the individual parts of Gregor’s body should go and how they fit together. Like that, Ryan soon built up the automaton, limb by limb. Different from Maximus and Gaia, this automaton had four arms instead of just two. Plus, inside of each of those arms, as well as in his legs and parts of his torso, a number of small tools were hidden that Gregor should be able to make use of quite easily. The parts connecting the wooden plates to the outside of Gregor’s body were hanging on hinges that could be flipped up if a lock was released, and Ryan was sure that Gregor could control all of this freely so that he could access the parts and tools stored in the hollow parts of his body.

  And then, hidden behind the chest-plate was a slot for the spirit core. Ryan carefully pushed it into place, and immediately, the core began to glow, though differently from the way the others glowed. It gave off a dark red glow, like it was heating up intensely. The heat traveled through Gregor’s body, heating up the different liquids inside of him. Hot steam flowed out of the automaton’s mouth with a high-pitched whistle as Gregor began controlling his new body.

  The automaton looked down at his hands for a few moments before staring up at Ryan. He briefly held his lower two hands behind his back, then formed a fist with his upper right hand, which was soon pressed over the spot where one’s heart would be, while the edge of his left, flat hand was pressed vertically over his forehead and nose.

  “Uh … what’s he doing?” Vanda asked, a bit confused, and Ryan immediately smiled.

  “He’s doing an old salute from the time of the western independence war,” Ryan explained. “The country doesn’t exist anymore, I think it was called … Karia?”

  Immediately, Gregor nodded his head in confirmation, while Ryan could feel Vanda’s stare.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Oh, well …” Ryan stood and walked over to his shelves, grabbing one of the models standing there. It was an elvish knight wearing armor made from wood and roots, with branches and leaves sticking off of it. “This is a Karian knight from the same war. The brand that made it modeled it after a real historical figure, so there was a small booklet that explained some stuff about it all.”

  Vanda raised an eyebrow and stared up at Ryan. “So, you like building toy models, you know a ton about classes and system stuff, and you’re a history nerd? And you’re also known to be extremely violent and a great fighter?”

  Ryan stared back at her for a few moments and then shrugged. “People can have hobbies.”

  “Right, right … But … what now? What’s this guy’s deal?”

  “Well, he’ll have to tell me about that; hold on,” Ryan responded, promptly pulling up Gregor’s status window. Of course, Vanda didn’t know that spirits had classes and skills. But of course, spirits did tend to have special abilities, though they weren’t directly connected to the system in the same way that the spirits with Ryan were, so he was trying to keep that on the down-low as he looked at Gregor’s status.

  All the system windows relating to the spirits were dyed in the color and texture of their mana. Maximus’s was smooth and red, while Gaia’s was green and seemingly made of tightly interwoven threads. And Gregor’s seemed to be a metal pane with bolts at its edges holding it in place. It wasn’t even translucent like other system windows.

  [Gregor]

  [Artillerist | Level - 1]

  [MP - 32.5]

  [Stats]

  -[Dexterity - 0.85]

  -[Invention - 0.75]

  -[Mana - 0.80]

  -[Physicality - 0.69]

  -[Spirituality - 0.77]

  [Skills]

  -[Artillerist’s Construction | Level - 1]

  -[Artillerist’s Invention | Level -1]

  -[Artillerist’s Drunken Stupor | Level - 1]

  Ryan stared at the window, confused. He knew about the Artillerist class; he had only just looked it up the other day after learning that Gregor was one, but the stats were different. Replacing the Artillerist’s perception and intuition were the stats invention and physicality. Invention was a stat that basically supported the creation of new concepts and ideas as well as the combination of old ideas. Engineering classes often had this, but the artillerist shouldn’t. Similarly, physicality didn’t make much sense there.

  Physicality showed one’s ability to move their body as a whole, their flexibility and mobility. Dexterity was basically a fine-tuned version for the hands, combining it with one’s level of hand-eye coordination, but that should be all that was needed there. Plus, those skills, Invention and Drunken Stupor, weren’t in the skill lists Ryan looked up.

  Immediately, Ryan pulled up all of Gregor’s skills.

  [Artillerist’s Construction]

  [Level - 1] [Proficiency - 0%]

  [Allows the user to construct and deploy machines using registered blueprints]

  [Effect - Create up to three machines]

  [Artillerist’s Invention]

  [Level - 1] [Proficiency - 0%]

  [Allows the user to develop new machine blueprints]

  [Effect - Artillery Invention]

  [Artillerist’s Drunken Stupor]

  [Level - 1] [Proficiency - 0%]

  [Allows the user to have their constructed machines enter a rampage by overloading their internal systems]

  [Effect - Boosts machine effects by 25% for 10 Minutes]

  [Cost - 20 MP] [Cooldown - 12 Hours]

  [Activation Requirement - State of Drunkenness]

  The first skill was the same as Ryan remembered it, though the scale of the effects was different as well. Usually, only one machine should be deployable at level 1. As for the invention skill, that seemed to explain why the stat was there; different from other Artillerists, Gregor was able to develop his own machine blueprints from scratch. Usually, that was something a separate engineer would have to do together with an artillerist.

  And that last skill … Artillerist’s Drunken Stupor was obviously a weird skill. Plus, how did a starting skill have an Activation Requirement? Those were supposed to only come into play at higher-grade skills you could get starting level 30.

  And most importantly, how the hell was Gregor, a literal robot, supposed to get drunk?

  “U-Uh,” Ryan stuttered out, “he’s got abilities related to machines and stuff, like artillery.”

  Vanda curiously leaned forward to the robot. “Oh, seriously? That’s pretty cool … Can you show me?”

  Ryan looked at Gregor, raising an eyebrow. “Well, Gregor, can you build something? Do you have any blueprints registered?”

  Immediately, the automaton nodded, and a window popped up in front of Ryan.

  [Gregor is requesting the following materials:]

  -[200g of Brass]

  -[10g of Gunpowder]

  -[200ml of High-Proof Liquor]

  -[350ml of Motor Oil]

  -[100g of Rubber]

  -[1kg of Steel]

  -[500g of Wood]

  Ryan immediately stared at Gregor, then let out a long groan.

  “Yeah, sorry, it looks like we won’t be able to show you right now … Gregor needs me to prepare the materials for him so that he can actually build things,” he explained, quietly ignoring the requested liquor on the list in front of him.