Ryan thought about it for a moment. “That sounds about right? With this, I should be around eleven or maybe even twelve hundred. Oh, by the way, what exactly happens when you collect all the statues?”

  “Nothing, actually. It’s just a sort of useless gimmick,” Runar pointed out, “But it’s a decent way to figure out what you still need to get to.”

  “Hm, alright. Anyway, let’s get to the gift shop and buy some new parts.”

  Modak connected a speaker to a power source. The speaker had exposed plates and wires sticking out from basically every side. Crystal filters were attached to one side, and all the speaker plates were made of thin crystal sheets. It was properly fine-tuned with the help of the researcher Jack Field, who had helped Modak employ methods of aura manipulation in ways that supplemented the methods the orc was already making use of.

  Carefully, he took a step back and turned on the speaker. A basic signal was fed into it, and it slowly started creating audible sound. It was scratchy and not perfect in any way whatsoever, but it worked, at least. Looking at the screen displaying the sensor’s results, he saw that the mana output seemed to be a pretty good match to what it was supposed to do.

  So, Modak slowly turned the speaker off again. He took the somewhat-oversized mana tape that he and Marge had prepared for this and carefully placed it into the tape reader. Different from a normal tape reader, though, this one interacted with the mana on the tape a little differently to allow the mana signature to be copied better.

  Taking a deep breath to prepare himself for what he assumed would be another failure, Modak turned on the tape reader. The chant currently recorded on the tape was a very simple spell that only relied on vocal components. Basically, it created a magical phenomenon in the air. Specifically, it should create the sound of a piano being played.

  And as the chant was output through the speaker, nothing happened. Just as Modak thought, it was a failure. He let out a long groan, realizing that nothing had happened again, and marked this test as another failure.

  Marge had already long gone home, so he was alone in his lab, trying to test it out; he had really felt like he could get some kind of breakthrough tonight. He just felt like that had to be it.

  “Fuck, what the hell is wrong here?” Modak sighed, biting the pencil he was holding. Frustrated, he got up and pulled the tape out of the player without turning the speaker off. A loud screech echoed through the room, but that wasn’t what Modak noticed first. Instead, he focused on the three notes that were then played. They were random, and a well-tuned piano would probably not be able to create these sounds, but nonetheless, this was indeed a breakthrough.

  Modak stared at the tape, confused, not sure what just happened, then glanced down at the tape. There was a large scratch on an exposed part of the crystal tape.

  “Wait, was the … was the mana released?” Modak wondered, and his heart almost skipped a beat. “That’s it! I can’t just let the mana be duplicated; I need to have the tape act as the original vessel. The mana frequency will be released from the tape and then, while being processed, will be imbued with the properties that it needs to create a magical effect!”

  Instantly, Modak practically tore open the tape player, changing around wires and pulling out small parts on the baseboard to change the way that the player worked. He pushed the tape back into the player and started it back up.

  And then … music played. Though that was probably wrong. It was just a random assortment of notes that vaguely sounded like they could have been created by a broken piano. But even so, to Modak, it sounded beautiful.

  A broad grin formed on his face as he looked at the tape player. The mana that had been placed onto the crystal tape was now completely gone from it. Basically, each tape would be a single-use item, but even so, this proved it. It was possible to mechanically recreate magic!

  There were instances where spells were placed onto crystal receptacles and were then mechanically triggered, but this was completely different. Here, all the processing and formation of the spell were done through this machine.

  With adrenaline rushing through his veins, Modak tried out something else. The tape that was playing right now had been recorded by a mage who was assisting them. After all, the initial idea was to allow mages to temporarily save the chant and then replay it later, but from Modak’s understanding, that really wasn’t what was happening there.

  He grabbed a version of the tape that he himself had recorded, swapping it out with the one currently playing. Modak was a little anxious for some reason, but even so, he played the tape. And just like before, the notes were quiet and completely wrong, but still, a spell was enacted. A spell created through Modak’s voice.

  This was practically his dream come true!

  “I need to fine-tune this immediately,” Modak muttered. First things first, he had to fix the speaker. Luckily, it really just worked like a regular speaker, so physically, there shouldn’t be anything wrong, and Modak should be able to adjust all the values to produce a proper, clean sound with the use of a number of test signals and a secondary regular speaker as a reference.

  It took an hour to get this perfectly down to a point Modak was happy with; then he started working on something else.

  Modak opened his laptop and opened audio-editing software. He and Silvia had played around with this together a bit in the past, because they were both really into music. Ryan was as well, but he was less interested in making music himself. But even so, Modak knew some basics of editing audio tracks properly.

  He got his microphone and re-recorded the chant. Using that, he created a few different versions that he played onto different mana tapes. For one, he tried to filter out any possible background noise from the track, leveled out the volume, reduced any audio interference, and then did a number of tests. For one, he wanted to see how the decibel level of the recorded base track affected the resulting spell, or how certain voice modifications would mess things up, if at all.

  He created about a dozen different tracks of the same exact chant and recorded it onto different tapes.

  The first tape that he played was the one with the unedited chant. It already sounded a lot better, so clearly, a lot of the interference had come from the speaker itself. Even so, the notes were still random and quite out of tune, just not as jarring to listen to as before.

  For the second tape, with the background noise removed and the volume leveled out, you could already notice something that was more like a proper melody. It was still pretty random, but each note played into the next a lot better, and the specific notes weren’t out of tune anymore.

  And then, with each tape, Modak’s understanding of how this entire setup worked grew more and more. He made changes to his pronunciation and specifically edited parts of the audio track to get the right changes. Usually, the actual music that was played once the spell was activated was affected by the caster’s mentality and what they were thinking about, but in this case, it seemed as though Modak was able to affect minute details by changing the pitch of particular waves along the audio track.

  Bit by bit, Modak came closer to his goal. And then, before he knew it, the door opened up.

  “Modak? You’re here already? Don’t tell me you’ve been here all night!” Marge came rushing into the room. “And please, turn down the music! This is way too loud!”

  Almost startled, Modak turned toward Marge. “Huh?” he asked, taking off his headphones. Realizing who it was that was talking to him, Modak jumped up. “Perfect! You’re here! Marge, it works! I got it to work!”

  “What do you … What do you mean?” Marge asked, looking at Modak as she slowly but surely realized. “This music, is it … created through the spell we had someone record? Did you manage to replay a mage’s chant properly?”

  A massive grin formed on Modak’s face. “No, even better. Listen closely.”

  Marge, whose excitement was growing more and more, did as Modak said and listened closely. The spell’s secondary effect was to hide the voice of the one who was chanting, since the chant needed to be spoken constantly throughout the spell. With it being distracting otherwise, this was the best solution.

  But if you focused properly, the voice of whoever chanted did push through a bit. And soon, Marge realized whose voice it was.

  “Hold on, now; this is your voice, isn’t it? How—”

  “Marge, we didn’t create a way to replay a spell someone chanted before; we created a new way to cast magic. This isn’t duplicating a chant; it’s turning speech into magic.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Quite Handy

  The door opened with a loud creak, and Ryan and Runar stepped into the gift shop. Ryan approached the treasure chest in the corner of the room and dumped all the coins into it, reserving only one for later. He placed the Moss Sheep’s statue inside together with his point card, then shut the lid.

  Ryan waited a few moments and then opened the lid up again. All the coins and the statue had disappeared, and the corresponding points were put onto the card. It now read Points—1257. Around eight hundred more than the first time Ryan had bought things from there.

  He quickly approached the old wooden counter and knocked on it a few times. The clown popped out immediately, and Ryan immediately gave him the plastic coin he was still holding on to. With an excited grin, the clown held his hand toward Ryan, who immediately shook it.

  Just like last time, all the toys and plushies that were on the wall before fell to the ground, revealing a number of different vouchers. There were two more seed and sapling vouchers left each, two more weapon vouchers, as well as three more armor vouchers. But beyond those, there were six more vouchers.

  Gregor—Random Blueprint Voucher—200 Points

  Gregor—Random Arm Voucher—200 Points

  “An … arm voucher? I guessed the blueprint part, but … what does it mean with arm?” Ryan asked out loud, though it was mostly a rhetorical question. One that Runar still felt like answering.

  “You know, the things coming out from your shoulder.”

  Ryan looked at his uncle with a blank expression. “Ha-ha. Funny. You know that’s not what I meant. Also, why are Gregor’s things both two hundred points? Gaia’s Seed Vouchers were only a hundred points.”

  “The prices are pretty random, honestly. Either way, just decide what you’re going to get and then let’s go home,” Runar suggested, patting his nephew on the shoulder.

  “Right, right, don’t rush me.”

  Ryan looked at the wall in front of him. First, he would grab one of each for Gregor; that would be four hundred points. Plus an Armor Voucher for Maximus, which would make the total six hundred. That way, he finally got one of each, since he had already gotten both of Gaia’s vouchers last time around. That meant he had another six hundred and fifty points to spend now.

  After a quick briefing with the spirits, Ryan decided to get another one of each of Gaia’s vouchers, since the seeds and sapling would take the longest to be ready anyway, and then decided to get another voucher for each of Maximus and Gregor.

  Maximus wanted another weapon, and Gregor wanted another arm, though Ryan had expected he would want another blueprint. Then again, Gregor could make those himself, so maybe that did make sense.

  Ryan grabbed the vouchers and put them away for now. He would take a proper look at everything later at home. And with that, Ryan and his uncle made their way out of the dungeon. The healer Kula was waiting outside, but since there was nothing for him to do right now, he was soon dismissed. It seemed like Runar had hired him until the end of the month, so he would be sticking around for a while longer.

  The moment the car stopped in front of their home, Runar jumped out and rushed into the café, saying he had to check up on some things regarding Ryan’s new skill. Meanwhile, Ryan made his way upstairs.

  Finally stepping back into the flat, Ryan let out a loud groan. He was happy he could finally take it a bit easier and think about … everything. He’d been so busy trying to level up and get stronger that he had no idea what he was supposed to do right after that.

  Why exactly did he want to get stronger? What did he want his part in the Aglecard family to be? Ryan didn’t even know what he had wanted to do in the future before all of this started happening; he had basically just gone to college to buy himself some time before shit would have to get real. At least he had a couple of goals to follow for the time being, and that was to finally get Jester to acknowledge him and to find the remaining parts for Morgana and Violette.

  But even that didn’t really lead to anything afterward. Once Ryan did all of that, he would have to figure out what else he would do. Or he could just dedicate all his time to helping out the spirits. That seemed like it could be a full-time job.

  Then again, Runar mentioned that a lot of the time, the spirits were supposed to do their own thing once Ryan got the skills that were needed to let them stay farther away from him. And once that happened, he might not necessarily have to take care of them too much. Rather, because he was just standing back during the trips to the dungeon every time, he felt pretty useless already. Like he was letting the spirits do all the tough parts.

  Ryan groaned lightly as he waved his hand, letting the spirits out of their domains while walking into the living room. He dropped down on the couch next to Liam.

  “You’re back from your quest?” the boy asked curiously. “Have you finally succeeded in your goal, as you said you hoped to?”

  Ryan looked at the young vampire with a smile, pointing at Maximus. He activated the Spirit Seal Recovery skill, and Maximus almost immediately doubled in size. Liam’s eyes started sparkling.

  “Whoa! That’s so cool!” he exclaimed, letting the “King” mask slip for a few moments, “Can you do that for all of them?”

  “Mm-hmm, I can double their size right now. Once the skill levels up, I can make them even larger. We’ll actually go downstairs and try it out on Gaia in a bit. Because of her skill that links her to her garden, she has seeds and moss and stuff on her, and we want to know how the skill affects all of that,” Ryan explained, opening his backpack to grab the vouchers. “Runar had something to take care of downstairs, so in the meantime, we’ll build some more parts for the spirits.”

  “Ooh! Can I help?” Liam asked, and Ryan nodded immediately.

  “Of course. Do you want to go into my room and grab the plastic sorting boxes on my desk?”

  Liam didn’t even hesitate; he jumped up, rushing out of the living room as Ryan grabbed the first voucher. It was Gregor’s Arm Vouchers. Since he was most curious about what this meant, Ryan tore both of them at the same time.

  [Two Random Arm Vouchers have been Redeemed—Two random Arms have been awarded]

  -[High-Powered Drill Arm]

  -[Precision Assembly Arm]

  Ryan raised an eyebrow as the two expansion boxes appeared in the space between the domains. High-powered drill? Precision assembly?

  He quickly pulled both boxes out onto the table in front of him, taking a closer look at the box art. Each one just showed off a different arm that was almost identical to the ones Gregor already had, simply replacing the hand with something else. One of them had, as the name suggested, a rather large drill as its hand, while the other one’s hand had ten extremely thin and long fingers arranged in a circle on a round base plate.

  “Well, alright … So, we’ll have some replacement arms for you, huh?” Ryan said, looking at Gregor. But for some reason, the automaton shook his head.

  “What do you mean?”

  Slowly, Gregor held up one of his hands, showing four fingers, and another one, showing two fingers. He held the two hands together, and Ryan immediately understood.

  “So … they’ll be added on? Like, you’ll have six hands?”

  Gregor nodded. Ryan was pretty curious about that, but he couldn’t help but be a bit hesitant about it. There weren’t any more slots on Gregor’s body to fit more limbs into, so how was that supposed to go? Well, either way, he should be able to figure it out once the arms were properly constructed.

  While Ryan was taking the frames out of the first box, Liam returned with the plastic sorting boxes and sat down on the ground next to the coffee table. “So, what can I do?”

  “I’ll take the parts off the frames, and then you put them into the right part of the sorting boxes, alright?”

  Liam excitedly nodded as Ryan took his tools from his backpack. Though, before he did, he realized that building everything would still take a while.

  “Gaia, do you want me to get you the new seeds before I start? That way, you can try to plant them upstairs already,” Ryan suggested. The Golem stepped up with an excited demeanor, so Ryan grabbed Gaia’s vouchers and tore both of them at the same time.

  [Random Seed Voucher has been redeemed—Three Random Seeds have been awarded]

  -[Pixie Lily Seeds]

  -[Furious Orchid Seeds]

  -[Strength Pumpkin Seeds]

  [Random Sapling Voucher has been redeemed—One Random Sapling has been awarded]

  -[White Cherry Tree Sapling]

  Ryan took out the seed packets and gave them to one of the sub-golems, while he gave Gaia herself the cherry tree sapling. The Golem made her way outside, and Ryan got started. Ryan activated his Spirit Construction skill and started swiftly taking apart the frames. Liam was able to follow along pretty well, taking the parts that Ryan removed from the frames and putting them into the right part of the sorting boxes.

  Of course, not all of the parts were in frames; some of them were in separate small packets like the rest of Gregor’s body had been. That was why preparing Gregor’s models hadn’t really taken that long, and Ryan was able to take both apart in just a couple of minutes. And then it was time for Ryan to really try and figure out which of these parts had to go where. The pipes, motors, screws, bolts; they all had to be put into the correct position for Gregor’s new arms to actually function.