"So, just explain it to me again."

  "Dude, I don't know what you want from me, I just... It just feels obvious," Ryan replied, looking at his uncle with a loud groan, "I looked at them, and just sort of in the back of my mind, I thought 'Oh, those guys are connected to this great spirit, neat', and then moved on, it didn't even feel that big a deal to me."

  Runar narrowed his eyes, "Are you- How can that not feel like a big deal to you?"

  "I-" trying to stutter out a response, Ryan really didn't know what to say. It wasn't even a complete thought, it was at the same level of knowing that the sky was blue. It wasn't anything you consciously thought about until it was brought up to you, but obviously you always knew that the sky was blue.

  "Listen, I frankly don't know why this is so important. They're magical species anyway, right? And it's not like I'm saying that the great spirits created them, I'm just saying that they were probably influenced by the same stuff that the great spirits were born from," Ryan said, finally collecting his thoughts properly, "Like, look at Liam. I don't know about other vampires, but he feels very distinctly related to shadows and darkness, but there's a pretty clear vibe of blood in there as well."

  Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Runar sighed, "And you're sure this isn't just what you're thinking based on what species they are? Everyone knows that vampires are related to blood and can't deal with light, so darkness and blood are pretty obvious there, right?"

  "Well, yeah, but it's different. It's more like the vibe that I get when I look at, like, Maximus, Gaia, or Gregor's mana."

  Runar looked at his nephew, thinking deeply, "It is true that the mana of magical species tends to have some sort of overlap and directions that their mana is more likely to go into. Vampire mana is more likely to be somehow related to darkness and blood, as you just said."

  "Huh? If you already know about this, then why are you so-"

  "Ryan, because you shouldn't be able to know this. An innate sense of others' mana is something that only a few dozen people possess at any time. Awakened can develop something like it, but that's something for high-levelled magic classes. Yes, you're technically a magic class, but that's just a technicality. We both know you're not a spellcaster or anything like that," Runar said very clearly, "And even if you did just happen to somehow unlock that innate sense of others' mana, you didn't point out the element or concept that their magic relates to, but the spirits of those concepts. Specifically the great spirits, Ryan. That is the weird part. It doesn't matter if you don't consciously think they're related, subconsciously you obviously did, and that's not... That's not good."

  "Why is it not good? What does it matter? Even if, which, again, I don't think is the case, the great spirits meddled a bit... so what? Again, seriously, it's not a big deal."

  Taking a deep breath, Runar shook his head, "Yes, it is a big deal. Not only because that means that somehow, the great spirits have the power to influence evolutionary processes or genetic mutation, but also because that means that the shadows- it means that the shadows might already know about it. We've been wondering why they're going after spirits all of a sudden, and..."

  Ryan widened his eyes as the realization came to him, "You think that if the White Shadow Society can turn public opinion against spirits, when they reveal how these magical folks came to be, they can use that to make people hate people with magical influences more easily?"

  "... Your intuition is starting to make you sound like a smartass, but yes," as he turned around, Runar clearly tried to hide the worry on his face, "But for now, just don't worry about it. Just focus on building the rest of the stuff you got from the gift shop."

  "Right. Sorry, I didn't realize it was that important... like, thinking about it now, it feels pretty obvious that I was being dumb for not telling you, but... I don't know if I even..."

  "Don't worry, it's not like you did anything bad. Just take it easy, alright? You deserve it now. Oh, and make sure you call your Awakened Centre rep to tell her you reached level 10, you need to get your level updated as soon as possible."

  "Yeah, yeah..." Ryan responded, before yelling out to Liam, "Yo, Liam, I'm going to work on the rest of the models now!"

  It took just a few moments for the young vampire to arrive, ready to help out again. Of course, Ryan didn't really need Liam's help, but he had promised to let him join in when his skill cooldown was over.

  "So, what will we make next?" Liam asked, his back straightened while looking at Ryan curiously. In the time the skill was cooling down, Liam had gotten a bit closer to his whole 'King' act again. Ryan didn't mind, though.

  "The rest of the stuff is for Maximus. A weapon and an armour piece," Ryan explained, though he had three vouchers laying in front of him, not just two. There were two things that Ryan had to build, but one of the vouchers was for something new for Gregor.

  Ryan grabbed that voucher and tore it. As the small ticket disappeared, something appeared again in the space between the domains; a rolled-up piece of paper.

  [Random Blueprint Voucher has been redeemed - One Random Blueprint has been awarded]

  -[Fortified Grenade Launcher Blueprint]

  Ryan pulled out the blueprint, quickly looking over to Gregor who was seated on the ground, creating a large number of parts from the materials that they had given him. Of course, with the parts already created, building the actual machine would be a lot faster. That being the case, Gregor was also getting through a ton of alcohol, despite his small size. Ryan knew that it was getting absorbed by Gregor's spirit core, so he didn't need to worry about where it all fit in Gregor's body, but it was still a bit concerning. He was clearly getting pretty drunk.

  Even so, since he was an automaton, it probably was a little less concerning. After all, he wasn't hurting himself, plus he was actually only getting faster and more skilled the more drunk he got. Ryan held out the rolled-up blueprint toward Gregor, who quickly stood up and came to take a look. He unrolled the paper and glanced over the blueprint, before the paper fell apart.

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  [The -Fortified Grenade Launcher- Blueprint has been registered]

  "Great! Gregor, can you prepare one of them? That would be a good chance to see what happens when you go over your limit for concurrent machines," Ryan suggested, and Gregor nodded his head. Luckily, he seemed to have everything that he needed here already. Runar had come and given Gregor a bunch of different materials and just stacked them up in Ryan's room so that the automaton could grab them whenever he wanted.

  He nodded and quickly got started, while Ryan himself quickly tore the last two vouchers.

  [Random Weapon Voucher has been redeemed - One Random Weapon has been awarded]

  -[Flesh-Tearing Dagger Ripper]

  [Random Armour Voucher has been redeemed - Three Random Armour Pieces have been awarded]

  -[Cybernetics Model - Left Leg]

  -[Dullahan Model - Torso]

  -[Paladin model - Torso]

  "... Okay?" Ryan let out quietly, not having expected basically any of the parts that he was given. Flesh-Tearing? Cybernetics? Dullahan? The Paladin armour was a bit more in the realm of what made sense to Ryan, but even so, Maximus' range was almost startling.

  The fact that the armour voucher gave three armour pieces in the first place was pretty surprising, but it definitely wasn't something Ryan was complaining about. Ryan pulled out the four boxes. The one for the dagger 'Ripper' was actually quite small, so Ryan doubted it actually had a ton of pieces. With that in mind, he quickly opened the back and took out the two small frames that were in here.

  "So, I'm actually going to do this one on my own real quick, alright? It's very sharp and jagged, and I don't want you to hurt yourself," Ryan said, looking over to Liam.

  "What? But you said you would let me help..."

  "Yes, yes, of course! You can help with the other three models here, and if you want, you can already take them out of the boxes, but this one is too dangerous. It's a weapon, you know? And I wouldn't be a good knight if I were to let you get hurt," Ryan tried appealing to Liam's act, and though he grumbled lightly, he nodded his head in agreement.

  Ryan quickly took some pictures of the boxes so that he could reference the box art later, and then hurried to take the dagger's pieces off the frames. There weren't many pieces, so just as Ryan thought, building it didn't take particularly long. Though he did have to be careful not to accidentally hurt himself. The edge of this dagger wasn't straight, but it was like needles or thorns grew from it at random angles. The name of this weapon really made a lot of sense. Though, considering its size, it was more like... a skin-tearing dagger.

  With Maximus' size doubled, and the dagger growing alongside him, it could certainly do some damage, but it was still too small for most opponents. But it definitely didn't hurt to have in your arsenal, that was for sure.

  Ryan put the dagger together and held it over to Maximus, who had taken a break from his reading, before taking a look at the dagger. Just like with Granfell, he seemed to already be used to the way he had to handle this, even if the stance that he took on was much different to the way he normally moved and carried himself. Just from looking at him, Ryan could feel a more... brutal air around the knight, different to the usually so dignified way he acted.

  Maybe there was more to Maximus after all. Maybe he was a sort of amalgamation of all the different sorts of knights that existed. That would explain how and why he had so many different combat techniques and why he could apparently use every single weapon perfectly.

  Though, for now, Ryan had no way of verifying that, so he simply moved on, and quickly took the first set of frames that Liam had taken out of the boxes. It was the 'Cybernetics' model, the one that seemed the most out of place.

  Frankly, if Maximus had a full suit of armour from this model, he would simply look like a robot. Like the kind that the robotics club built, not Gregor's sort. There were lights and wires and all sorts of stuff that felt off when you thought about a 'Knight', but that also made it pretty interesting.

  Sadly, this was just a leg. Ryan really wanted to see what Maximus would look like if he had every part. He should really hurry and buy the other two vouchers, though after that, they had to figure out something else.

  "Maximus, figure out a way to give me more quests. We should try to get you some more stuff," he grinned, quickly taking the parts out of the frames and handing them to Liam so that he could put them into the plastic sorting boxes, just as the two of them did before.

  But after taking the cybernetic model's pieces off the frames, Ryan first moved on to the other two models as well. The Paladin model was a straight-up armour, but in a simple gold and white design and a slightly different shape than Maximus' regular armour. The pieces seemed a bit thicker, too.

  The Dullahan armour, though, was different. It was made of bone and soot-blackened metal. The few pieces of cloth and leather that were left were completely torn. But the only thing that Ryan really wondered was exactly who or what the bones came from. Were they just magically created from nothing? Ryan honestly hoped so.

  The actual construction of the pieces was very straightforward and much easier than Gregor's parts, though he still had to wait out another cooldown to use the skill again and finish the Dullahan armour in the end.

  "Alright, Maximus, want to try them out? I would have to take your spirit core out momentarily, though," Ryan explained as he put his tools away, and the knight quickly nodded his head. There were still twenty minutes left on the skill now, so they could try out all of them without worry. Right now, Maximus was wearing only the knight model parts. The crusader parts were a bit too bulky. So, for now, Ryan quickly swapped out Maximus' left leg for the cybernetic model leg.

  Maximus tried to move, but his steps were awkward and jagged, like his cybernetic leg was moving faster than his regular leg.

  And double-checking Maximus' stats like this, his resistance had gone down a good bit, but his physicality increased a lot in return.

  "So the cybernetics model is more based on physicality? Maybe speed?" Ryan suggested, and Maximus nodded, feeling the same thing. Liam's eyes were glistening as he looked at the mechanical leg moving around. But before the skill's effect ran out, Ryan had to hurry and try out the two torsos. They required Ryan to take out Maximus' core and then re-attach the limbs and head, and if possible, Ryan wanted to put Maximus back into the knight's model torso afterward as well.

  "Alright, let me know if something feels off," Ryan said immediately, removing the front plate off the Maximus' torso before pulling the spirit core out, and Maximus' body went limp. He hurried to take the armour's arms, legs, and head off and attached them to the paladin torso, and then quickly placed Maximus' core inside of the paladin torso, quickly closing everything up.

  The spirit stood back up, trying to adjust to this armour for a few moments.

  "Does it feel any different?" Ryan asked, pulling up Maximus' status window again. The paladin model seemed to have a bit higher resistance, but not by a large margin. So, instead, Ryan felt like there might be something else to this.

  Maximus nodded immediately, but didn't seem to know how to communicate this to Ryan, so he instead just pulled Granfell out of his domain before jumping down onto the ground. He started to swing the sword around, and Ryan could see a soft, white light envelop the blade.

  "Oh, can you imbue your attacks with holy energy?"

  Maximus quickly nodded, and Ryan grinned lightly, "Hm, is that so? Well, that's useful. According to Runar, there's quite a few undead in the dungeon's haunted house section."

  The knight seemed to quickly catch on, nodding in excitement. However, they still had another part to try out. After doing the whole thing again, the Dullahan armour seemed to have the same stats as the paladin armour, and Maximus was able to imbue Granfell with an opposing energy to what he had just done. An energy of death. Which, of course, was something that was extremely effective against, well... any living being.

  That meant that, if they could plan ahead well enough, it should be possible to boost Maximus' attacks extremely well.

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