AN: Second Chapter of Today. Enjoy :)

  Second question of the week:

  If you had to choose four lightning-themed temptes, who would you choose?

  Now, here is the chapter:

  ~Razen Antares Gremory~

  Floor 40 - Day 104 - Nighttime

  Antares forged the day away, not even stopping to eat or take small breaks; he was determined to learn as much about bcksmithing as he possibly could in the shortest timeframe possible. And he has been succeeding.

  While many would argue that he is wasting his time with something as mundane as Bcksmithing, the Devil Heir thoughtfully enjoyed it, so it felt like a fun hobby he got suddenly very invested in, like discovering Warhammer when you are in your forties. A thing of beauty.

  Still, his dedication has been paying off massively, by now he has forged at least over a thousand pieces, testing many different forging techniques and concepts –even some he came up with himself. It was honestly a very fun experimental period that allowed him to learn more about bcksmithing than any book or clever observation ever could.

  Now with a good grip on Bcksmithing, Antares finally decided to go a little wild with experimentation. Until now, he avoided using any supernatural means to forge, as much as this heavily enchanted workshop allowed him anyway, but with some experience under his belt, he started to use his mana.

  Like he did with forging, he started small at first, flowing his mana through his hammer while he shaped and tempered the ingot. By the end of the forging process, it was almost impossible to hide his surprise; “… such massive improvement.” He mumbled in surprise, not expecting the difference to be massive like this. Comparing what he forged without mana to something he actively flowed his Demonic Power in –it’s like going from water to wine, from zero to hero, a difference so absurd he became momentarily speechless.

  But Antares was not yet finished, he still needed to give this weapon a proper edge. He briefly stopped and intently looked at the dagger, his mind trying to come up with a good way he could use his mana to get the most results.

  He concluded he couldn’t just flow his mana through the weapon, as that would strengthen the dagger and only make the process of using the grindstone more difficult; he needed to do the exact opposite of that –flow his mana through the grindstone so it could more effectively apply the edge.

  It was a weird sensation—different from his forging hammer—the grindstone was part of the workshop and of a way bigger size, but it was extremely accepting of Antares’ Demonic Mana, turning what he expected to be a rather borious process into something very smooth and swift.

  After he finished giving an edge to his creation, Antares picked up a leather strip made of Snakeskin Troll and wrapped it around the grip tightly. He then briefly soaked the leather in a special oil he had prepared and burned it up for a single heartbeat in the forge.

  Getting it out and letting the dagger cool for a moment, Antares almost jumped back when he saw the dagger emitting a strange grey fog with blue sparkles. Frowning, he carefully approached the bde, the fog slowly dissipating with every breath he took.

  He curiously looked at it, his senses scanning the dagger and the fog, only to find nothing amiss with it. But as someone who spent over 100 days in the tower, he would be a fool not to recognize Morpheus’ Fog, but the fog would only appear if he, “… did I just manage to make Dream Equipment?”

  With the fog dissipating, Antares saw how the dagger shone in a low whitish light every time he focused his gaze on it; “A Common Grade then, but still… For the tower to recognize my creation to the point it turned it into a Common item and not just a Trash one…”

  Antares honestly felt a little speechless. He had been a bcksmith for less than a day, and he had already done something absurd like this; he knew he was “cheating” with the Company's Talents, but he never thought it would be this bad. If any of the Masters' Smiths in this city heard he was able to create a Common Grade item on his first day, they would all want to commit seppuku out of shame.

  The Force user himself is feeling a little speechless at such an achievement; “Perhaps it is due to the quality of my mana? My Demonic Power has long since fused with Honkai energy, its quality is basically incomparable –I’ve only seen mana as good as this from Shi-Woon, but he is a Humanoid Dragon, and they are supposed to have some absurdly dense and high-quality mana.” He talked out loud while walking back and forth, his mind running through scenario after scenario at incredible speeds.

  Antares spped his face, getting worked up like this is worthless; he has some kind of absurd talent for bcksmithing, so all that he has to do is cultivate it to the best of his abilities now.

  And that is exactly what he did.

  ~Razen Antares Gremory~

  Floor 40 - Day 106 - Nighttime

  Antares spent two entire days smithing, and he went wild –using every single type of metal and ore he could get his hands on, he crafted from the simplest daggers to the most complex Greatswords, all of that using his Demonic Power to make his creations as absurdly as his ability allowed.

  He used Mana, Mana Burst, Ki, and even Force Attribute to craft one and more of everything he knew how –it was a monumental effort, but with his innate talent for the art coupled with the Company Talents, he managed to reach incredible heights.

  Stretching his hand, Antares used his Force Telekinesis spell to pick a Spirit Steel ingot from inside the adjacent forge, with precise control, he put the ingot into a corner of the central anvil and willed it to be stuck and, without missing a beat he picked a hammer with his Force Telekinesis and started striking at the incandescent metal.

  Forging by using his Force Telekinesis alone was one of Antares' most brilliant ideas in these st few days. With three Goetias to hold the line, it was a simple task to assign to each of them to keep forging by using Force Telekinesis, while he used his body to keep forging normally. This way it more than tripled his forging speed, which allowed him to acquire tons of experience in a very short time.

  Thankfully, the anvil was big enough to accommodate three weapons being forged simultaneously, so he didn’t have much trouble, principally considering his current level of proficiency with his Force Telekinesis. The tower was many things, plenty of negative and an equal amount positive as well, in this Dream-like pce, Antares finally had one of the most precious resources he could ever hope for –Time.

  He may not have gotten stronger in raw stats—his physique and mana pool are the literal same they were 100 days ago—nothing changed in that way, but at the same time, a lot changed when it comes to his skills with his innumerable abilities, as he has been training with them everyday, so they have been growing at astounding speeds. No to mention he has been discovering facets of his Force Attribute that would leave his previous-self speechless, the Electromagnetism and Gravity Spells he has been slowly creating—they couldn’t compare with his Force Attribute, of course—but they were easily a close second, Antares would never understate the usefulness of Gravitational and Electromagnetic Force manipution.

  His skills with these branches of his main attribute grew to the point he could even start using them for forging as well, it was nothing absurd or fancy yet, but by applying them he could forge metal beyond merely ‘hitting them hard’ could accomplish –with electromagnetism, he could basically forge an ingot from inside and outside at the same time, making the metals more easily moldable and harder to break or damage after it was over –with gravity, he basically created immense amounts of pressure on the metal, allowing him to fold it way more than he theoretically should be able to.

  Funnily enough, due to his ck of proficiency with these aspects of his attribute, he also produced some very interesting effects, amongst them the Zero Gravity bde, which even being a common item almost seemed to possess no weight at all, which made its attack considerably weaker almost turning it into a Trash Tier item, or the Magnetized Bde, who seemed to repel every metal around it, making it impossible to wear the bde with any degree of armor. Antares was also perfectly aware that those qualities would be exceptional in any piece of armor, but those results were mostly accidents. Not to mention he had hyper-focused on smithing weapons and bdes, so his skills as an Armorsmith were exceedingly poor. He hoped the competition was flexible enough that they didn’t force him to forge armor or something else.

  He also tried to multitask with each his Goetias—doign two or more things with each of them—which ended up being an utter disaster, yes he may have three minds, but they were still his minds, so their inability to multitask without making a ton of mistakes was expected, so he just filled it under the very long list of skills he needed to train.

  Time slowly passed while he continued forging away, and after finishing a particur hard batch of Sabers, Antares heard a strange doorbell sound, like an earthquake arm mixed with dubstep; it was strangely fitting for the situation.

  Seeing as he already finished this batch and there weren’t any more ingots in the forge, he decided to check who could be. Stretching his body for a bit, he walked towards the door and opened it, only to see a strange Dwarven man.

  Like all Dwarfs, he was short but extremely stocky, his limbs were muscur and contained extraordinary power, his skin was slightly grayish giving the impression he was stone given life, his eyes were round and the color of a bze –something that reminded Antares of the heart of a forge, and his magnificent beard and long braided hair looked like sculped charcoal. He wore an expression of extreme annoyance with an equal amount of tiredness to follow it.

  “How may I help you, Sir…” Antares stopped, unsure of how to call the man.

  The dwarf ignored Antares' words and briefly scanned the workshop, his eyes nding on Antares’ pile of finished work and a frown marring his face; “Your smithing is shit.” He scrunched his face; “Your rhythm is garbage.” He then scowled, “And your sound is horrendous.”

  Completely ignoring the Devil, the man invaded the workshop and made a beeline towards Antares’ creations. He picked one of the bdes the Devil had made using gravity and scowled harder; “Decent folding at least, hmmm…” he narrowed his eyes and scoffed; “but it still cks passion.”

  “Passion?” Antares asked confused, while his senses scanned the dwarf before him.

  “Yes, passion, a Soul.” The man tossed the bde back into the pile; “These bdes feel like they were made by a factory, a production line, not an artisan, much less a true bcksmith.”

  “Who are you again?” pressed Antares with a frown.

  “You can call me Kal,” the dwarf huffed, “And I am a better smith than you, now… are you willing to listen?” Antares continued feeling extremely confused, but he still decided to introduce himself; “I am Razen Antares Gremory, an aspiring Bcksmith. Nice to meet you.”

  “Bah, by my standards, the only thing you are aspiring to be is a factory worker.” The dwarf ughed, making Antares' eyebrows twitch in irritation.

  “If your standards are so high,” Antares waved his hands to the forge, “Show me how it is done then.”

  Kal raised his eyebrow and smirked; “Get ready to be blown away, boy.” Without a single shred of hesitation, the dwarf started to work.

  Using the same Dark Iron Ingots Antares was using previously, he summoned a hammer out of thin air –this hammer was extremely simple, made of a dark-looking metal and an equally dark-colored wood as its handle, Antares was just a tad bit surprised due to the purple aura being emitted by it –it was an Epic Grade Item.

  The dwarf put the ingot inside the forge and closed his eyes, seemingly entering a meditative state with the hammer on his p. Antares suddenly felt a strange air take hold of the workshop, like there was a certain tenseness, a sense of anticipation that made the very earth hold its breath.

  And then, magic happened.

  Have you ever seen a true master of his craft at work? Someone so skilled, so proficient and experienced in what they do that they make even the most difficult things appear effortless, someone so good at what he does that it feels like they are simply sliding and passing through any obstacles and difficulties like they weren’t even there.

  Kal forging was that, and more, so much more. It was one of the purest forms of Art Antares has ever seen –so much expression, so much passion, so much soul, it left the boy, as he was definitely feeling like a small boy right now, utterly mesmerized.

  The rhythm of his strikes, the technique of his swings, the strength behind the hits, everything was perfect, the best Bcksmith Antares has ever seen and probably will ever see for a long while.

  But soon the devil noticed something weird –the sound of Kal’s hammering was different, rhythmic in a way he had never heard before. Feeling as if this strange rhythm was extremely important, Antares closed his eyes and focused his three Goetias completely into his hearing.

  One, two, three, five, eleven, fifty, a hundred and eight –slowly, Antares started to perceive a strange effect of the sound of Kal’s strikes. Suddenly, the rough figure of Philliah appeared on his mind. The words; dwarves, heartbeat, mountain, all echoed over, and then, Antares finally understood.

  Kal was forging on the rhythm of the Mountain, his own heartbeat synchronized with the mountain’s and his strikes. A trinity of resonance that turned simple smithing into a symphony.

  The Devil finally understood what he had been doing wrong until now, he was treating forging as he would treat any factory work, when he needed to be a maestro conducting an orchestra.

  While realization dawned on Antares, the dwarf finally finished the creation of his Dark Iron Dagger, a vivid Blue Glow surrounding the item. Kal looked at the young Devil and smirked; “How is it, did you finally understand?”

  Antares nodded his head absently. “Why help me?” He asked.

  The dwarf smirked; “…Your noise was annoying me.”

  “I thought dwarves were born with the sound of a forge or something?” pointed out Antares, befuddled. The Dwarf smirk turned sharper; “We are, but yours was so sad I couldn’t help myself.”

  Antares defted; “Fair enough, I guess…”

  “Now it’s your turn, boya,” The dwarf said, separating from the forge and looked intently at Antares; “Show me what you learned, show me your rhythm.”

  Antares smiled, picked up his hammer, and walked towards the forge.

  ~Razen Antares Gremory~

  Floor 40 - Day 107 -

  The time of the smithing competition finally arrived. Antares who had spent the st hours forging under the careful tutege of Kal, felt more than ready to tackle whatever the competition threw at him.

  He may not be as confident as an Armorsmith, but he learned more in those 12 hours under Kal than he learned during all the days he spent practicing by himself combined.

  Eu, Neptune, Pyra, and Midna had come to watch, and while he couldn’t see them amongst the bustling crowd, he could feel them with his senses.

  The competition started retively simple, the referee distributed the hundreds of bcksmiths amongst the many judges, in a 10 competitors per Judge structure. Antares felt a little nervous when he saw the many aspiring bcksmiths, some of them with full sets of Rare Tier equipment with an Epic here or there. For the first time in his new life, Antares felt like the poorest person in the room, something he also found quite comical.

  Things started a little slow, with the judge allowing the smiths to choose an ore amongst a few dozen –their first task, and the eliminatory round of the tournament, was to turn these ores into ingots, and those who failed to meet the minimum quality would be disqualified.

  Antares, who now could forge using the rhythm of the mountain, easily accomplished this task, and he was quite surprised when he saw all the other contestants in his group failing spectacurly at it.

  ‘Did Kal teach me some kind of absurd secret technique or something?’ Antares frowned inwardly while looking at the half-molten ore of the neighbor smith to his booth, a myriad of questions floating in his mind.

  With the first eliminatory phase over and more than 90% of the initial participants eliminated, the second round started. This time, using the ingots they had prepared in the first round, the participants had to forge a simple Dagger, with the judges evaluating the technique, speed, and quality of the final product.

  When it came to speed, Antares was particurly confident, with the help of his Force Telekinesis, he could basically do things at a faster and more precise rate than most, and while he was still slightly unsure about technique, he felt like the final quality of his pieces won’t lose so easily.

  Before the round officially started, Antares briefly looked at the podium where the Major Judges, one of them feeling quite familiar. Then there were the rewards, and while it may just have been his impression but he felt that it was almost palpable the greedy eyes locking in the glowing orange hammer at the top. Intellectually, the Devil knew just how much people coveted Legendary artifacts, principally on floor 40, but he didn’t know it was that much. He reckons that if these people had been Devils, such pure Greed would long have since allowed them to cast a High Css spell with little effort.

  Refocusing on the competition at hand, Antares continued with his forging, doing his utmost to make the best Dagger of his life. It was a rather fierce competition, principally considering that the people he was against were the Top 10% of smiths who had entered it. Antares briefly wondered if he would see Kal here as well, but he was quite disappointed when he didn’t see the older smith.

  He was quite a little surprised when he saw that most people participating in this competition were young or junior bcksmiths; ‘Perhaps it is one of those unwritten rules the people of the city follow?’ he pondered inwardly while he hammered away, his rhythm synchronizing with that of the mountain.

  The end of the round was quite the chaotic mess, with many people desperately hammering at their pieces in hopes of getting that st bit of quality in –many were eliminated, while only a few more skillful dozen remained. Antares managed to pass by the skin of his teeth, but he did pass.

  To be honest, he didn’t even know how he did it; he just followed the rhythm and somehow forged one of the best pieces till now. It was a little disconcerting in his opinion.

  The st round was more flexible, with only a few dozen people remaining, the Judges allowed the competitors to forge what they thought was their best work –they had the freedom to choose ore and everything.

  Unsurprisingly enough, Antares decided to go for a Dark Iron Dagger. Liking it or not, it was one of the things he had the most practice forging. And while he knew the first pce was probably impossible for him as things were now, he decided to try for it anyway.

  Removing the incandescent ingot from the forge, Antares put it in the anvil, gripping firmly his Common Grade Forging Hammer while holding the ingot with his Force Telekinesis, he started hammering.

  His strikes were firm –With each swing, he used Mana Burst to leverage even more strength, creating loud cnging sounds that made the earth tremble around him, with each strike he applied both his gravity and electromagnetism to more easily forge the ingot, all the while channeling his Force attribute into the ingot with every contact.

  Antares wanted to create his masterpiece, to forge the best possible Dark Iron Dagger he ever did. So he focused to the max, slowly falling into the mountain’s rhythmic heartbeat state, his concentration was wholly on the piece of metal before him.

  He swung, swung, and swung until he-

  *BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*

  An explosion that shook the entire square, engulfing all the competitors, without even being able to react properly, Antares gipped his barely formed dagger and cast a Force Shell Spell around himself, protecting him from the worst of the explosion.

  His neighbors weren’t so lucky, however, as many of them lost their limbs, while some just stayed unmoving on the ground, presumably dead.

  “Someone stole the Legendary Hammer!” shouted a raspy old voice, likely one belonging to one of the major judges.

  “It’s the Dream Eaters! They are going to kill us all–” The voice didn’t even get to finish speaking before letting out a very painful scream and shutting up forever.

  The crowd entered a state of absolute panic, people screamed and ran everywhere, bodies were smashed and pushed aside, and a few more good-hearted people rushed forward to help their fallen comrades.

  His regeneration quickly shaking off any effect of the explosion, Antares finally dawned on his Common Grade Armor and rushed towards the girls –if there is one thing that was absolutely hammered on them in these 40 floors is that you never split the party, and if the attackers are as dangerous as the panicking voices made them out to be, Antares is not about to underestimate them.

  Finding them was easy enough, his sharper senses instantly zeroed in on their mana signatures. Looking around, Antares breathed a small sigh of relief; luckily, the explosion seemed to be mostly contained to the pza of the competition, so barely any of the people in the audience suffered anything besides a bit of dust or debris hitting them here or there.

  Another explosion echoed, but this time it came from the sky. Curiously, Antares tilted his head and looked up, only to frown when he saw two streaks of light—one blue and the other golden—cshing against each other in a high-speed battle. Antares narrowed his eyes at the fight, because even at such a distance from the battle, he could feel the sheer Holy Light power emanating from the golden streak, so powerful it almost burnt his skin, even while being so far away.

  Sadly, they moved simply too fast and their power was simply too vast for Antares; he was completely outcssed and couldn’t catch anything about them besides that the Golden Light felt slightly familiar while the Blue one seemed to devour everything around it like a hungry Taotie.

  The two streaks of light kept cshing and cshing, and with each of their cshes came massive shockwaves that rattled the entire pza and toppled swathes of running people.

  Feeling as if he had already wasted enough time, Antares quickly refocused on finding the girls. Using his powerful legs now boosted by his Common Grade Armor Set, he jumped forward, spreading his wings, his senses quickly zeroed in on the familiar presence of Neptune and the others.

  Reaching the girls, Antares saw quite the chaotic scene –Eu was mid-air, flying with her wings while she pelted a group of bck-robed humanoids with Ice Shards, Neptune was jumping back while unching Chidori Senbon and Chidori Spear towards the attackers, while Pyra sent sword sshes of pure fire in hopes of boxing the enemies so her two comrades could deal the finishing blows.

  Without hesitation, Antares plunged into the midst of the robbed enemies—his body covered by his Force Shell—he punched forward while a scream was heard.

  “Antares, wait! They explo-”

  An explosion engulfed the overeager Devil, breaking the Shell of Force that covered his body. Thankfully, his armor was able to hold back most of the impact.

  Coughing due to the wave of dust that entered his mouth, Antares looked towards the girls; “Are you all alright?”

  “I should be the one asking you that,” breathed Neptune in a slightly worried tone; “Those guys are crazy, every time you defeat one of them, they detonate.”

  Midna audibly tsked, “That’s Dream Eaters for you.” She shook her head; “They hate The Tower as much as they hate Morpheus himself. And they will do anything to stop its progress.”

  “Why would they attack a smithing competition then?” Eu frowned while looking around with her guard raised, the screams and chaos slowly dying down, but the battle in the sky seemed to get more intense at every exchange.

  “The Legendary Artifact most likely,” hummed Midna while cupping her chin.

  “And let me guess, they want to use it to destroy the oppressors.” The amount of irony Neptune put in the st word could be felt by everyone.

  Midna deadpanned; “That sums it up, they would shout to the four corners of the world why they won’t allow someone to possess some Legendary item or the other, but would gdly use it to further their own agenda. Typical hypocrites.”

  Antares frowned; “What’s their objective anyway?”

  “Aside from standing against anything The Tower represents?” Midna shook her head; “I don’t know. They used to dominate the tower quite thoughtfully in the past, till some crazy group broke their blockade. But I admit I do not know as much about their group as I should. Still, I’ve heard some interesting rumors about them floating around.”

  “Rumors?” asked Eu after seeing that there were no Dreameaters nearby.

  “Well, there are quite a few of them. Mostly reting to their hate for anything Dream-reted, even if they still use the Dream Artifacts to get stronger,” Midna scratched her head; “They are also very infamously known for killing promising Dreamers, but this is honestly the first time I’ve seen heard them acting in such a low floor in a long while, they usually stay on the upper ones –that’s floor 71 and up, by the way.”

  “Are they—”

  “Look, the battle in the Sky has ended!” excimed a voice from the middle of the chaotic crowd, prompting Antares and company to look up. And indeed, the constant csh of the combatants in the sky had come to a swift end, the Blue streak nowhere to be seen, and only the golden one slowly lowered itself to the middle of the pza.

  With the golden streak a little more visible, Antares strained his vision to take a good look at it. “Is that… Asn?” he almost excimed in surprise.

  Midna raised her eyebrow and looked in the same direction, slowly nodding her head; “It certainly looks like him –green eyes, golden hair, and the same well-controlled aura. But what is that armor around him? It doesn’t look like a Dream Equipment or Artifact.”

  Antares narrowed his eyes; “It looks like some type of Sacred Gear Bance Breaker, but not one I know… Perhaps a Subspecies?” Sadly, before any of them could take a good look at the armor, Asn half-bowed towards the cheering crowd and disappeared on the horizon, only motes of Holy Light remaining in his wake.

  Without further ado, the Organizers of the competition quickly stepped forward and started helping the wounded. Antares sighed and decided he might as well see where this will lead, so he and the girls also followed their example. The chaotic and panicking crowd quickly stabilized in a small sembnce of order, allowing the organizers to finally talk with everyone in a calmer setting.

  Sadly, quite a lot of the competitors had died in the initial explosion, many of them didn’t have Antares’ reflexes to be able to avoid such a tragedy. The few lucky to survive lost limbs or were gravely wounded, requiring the immediate services of skilled healers or healing items.

  With a heavy heart, one of the oldest-looking organizers stepped forward; “First, I would like to apologize to all those present.” The older man took a deep breath. “In all these years since the Dream Eater blockade had been broken, this was the first time such a tragedy occurred. It’s with a heavy heart that I announce that this attack was not without victims. Please step forward if you are a retive or party member of: David Kele-”

  Before the old man could continue, A strange group of white robbed men appeared, Antares was quite surprised as they looked to have come out of nowhere, they all wore the same pin white robes that obscured their figures, but the symbol of a closed eye engraved on their robes’ back was more than enough clue for Midna.

  “The Cult of Morpheus.” Mumbled the flying Twili, lost in her own thoughts.

  ~Razen Antares Gremory~

  Floor 40 - Day 108 -

  An entire day had passed since the incident at the competition. Antares was quite surprised by just how easily the situation resolved itself when the Cult of Morpheus appeared, not to mention the sheer amount of respect and authority the white robbed men wielded.

  But it was quite expected when your cult’s whole purpose is to guarantee the prosperity and advancement in the tower –gaining the respect and goodwill of the masses might as well be just a simple side-effect for them at this point.

  The Cult helped everyone who had been wounded, and for those parties and retives to find the bodies or know the fate of their missing companions, it was a rather somber and bittert affair—as the aftermath of all events of this nature were—a tragedy that took the life of many innocent people who just wanted to live their lives.

  The followers of the Shaper of Dreams also guaranteed the competition was properly finalized –they called the top seven, who were the only people who managed to forge something before everything was blown up.

  Antares, to his luck, was one of these people. Sadly, this time his inexperience shone through, and the Priest of Morpheus, who led the entourage that was helping the competition, quickly saw through his inexperience and put him in the st pce. Antares didn’t mind, as it was undeniable he was the worst smith of the remaining competitors.

  Considering the Legendary Artifact was stolen by the Dreameaters, the first pce sadly had to settle for two Epic Grade Items and a heavy sum of money, Antares found it was a pity as the tanned young man who seemed to possess some kind of Drow ancestry looked quite polite and capable, he personally thought he deserved the Legendary item.

  As the 7th pce, Antares’ reward was a talk with Grandmaster Smith Gelbardolzan Kaldurac McTorke –so you can imagine his surprise when the address of the Grandmaster was the exact same address as the pce he had rented before the competition.

  Arriving at the familiar workshop, he deadpanned at the grey-skinned dwarf sitting on a reclining chair and smoking a brass pipe.

  “So you got 7th pce, eehh.” Hummed the Grandmaster between puffs of bck smoke; “I honestly expected you to fail more spectacurly.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, old man.” Antares sighed, easily falling into their old dynamic.

  “Bah, you barely have a decade of smithing under your belt.” The dwarf made a dismissive gesture with his hand; “If you won that thing, we might as well just retire and become farmers.”

  Antares coughed in his hand; “Three days.”

  “Three years?” the frowning dwarf mumbled, feigning to clean his ears; “That’s almost as talented as me in my younger days.”

  “Not three years old man,” Antares shook his head and pointed three of his fingers up; “Three days.”

  Gelbardolzan Kaldurac McTorke just looked at the sheer bullshit before him and sighed; “I need a drink.”

  .

  .

  .

  It turns out that when a dwarf says they need a drink, they really mean it. Kal stopped literally everything he was doing, entered the workshop, and made a beeline towards one of the unused corners, there he tapped on the wall in a strange rhythm –with the *pshhh* sound of steam being released and the cnging of brass gears moving, the wall opened up to reveal a dwarven-sized brass fridge, Kal opened it, picked two bottles of what looked like whisky, and two cups with ice on each, and put everything on top of one of the workshops brass tables.

  Seeing through the old man’s intentions, Antares brought his reclining chair inwards and then picked two brass chairs from the workshop and put them close to the table.

  Sitting in one of the chairs, Kal opened a bottle of whisky and filled the two cups to the brim with the beverage.

  “Silver Oak Whisky 120 years, Philliah hates it, but it's one of my favorites.” He mumbled while pushing one of the cups to Antares, who tentatively picked it up and took a sip.

  It was strong, but for someone who got used to drinking 51 when he was just a helpless human, it might as well barely register on his radar. The taste was quite good however –it had the typical oak whisky taste but with a more refreshing and pure undertone, it almost reminded Antares of fresh mint.

  Raising his eyebrow the dwarf finished a sip of his drink as well; “Surprised you can handle your liquor.”

  “I’ve always preferred the tastier and sweeter drinks when I was younger,” Antares hummed while lost in thought, “But life always has a way of making you start drinking strong liquor.”

  “Too true.” The dwarf nodded while he drank a little bit more; “Now, I guess it's time we finally introduce ourselves properly,” McTorke sighed; “It was a request from the Cult, you see.”

  “You already know it, but I am Gelbardolzan Kaldurac McTorke, a Grandmaster Bcksmith. You can call me Kal, if you want.” He finished his cup and refilled it again.

  Taking another sip from his cup, Antares scratched his head; “My name is Razen Antares Gremory, I am the current Heir of the Gremory Pilr of the Ars Goetia, a Dukedom of Hell.”

  Kal snorted, “You’re a Devil alright.” Antares rolled his eyes.

  The dwarf then did a good look over Antares, his eyes scanning the armor and equipment the Devil was wearing at the moment. “Your equipment is garbage.” The dwarf denounced in the same way he judged Antares’ smithing a day prior, prompting Antares to raise his eyebrow. From what the Devil noticed, what he was wearing was the standard for most Dreamers.

  Seeing the confusion on the Devil’s face, Kal snorted, “If you climb to Morpheus’ Arena like this, you will have a very bad time.”

  “No to sound arrogant or anything, but my party and I are pretty strong,” Antares nodded and sipped his drink; “We didn’t have much—if any—trouble until now.”

  “That’s because the first 40 floors are the Beginner floors, they are easy by design so that even people who don’t have a lick of supernatural background can grow to a certain level.” Kal took a big gulp of his whisky; “Floors 41 to 70 are the Middle Floors, also known as the Killing Floors.” Antares just raised his eyebrow.

  Kal cackled, “Let me guess.” He pointed at the redhead, “High Css Devil, can destroy a small mountain with your power, break the sound barrier… that level of stuff, I am right?” Starting to get a few suspicions of where this was going, Antares nodded.

  “That’s literally every single monster on floor 41—even the weakest critter is a High Css—with the Elites and Bosses being at the peak.” Kal's cackles turned slightly vicious; “Common Grade equipment from the Beginner Floors won't cut it at all. So unless you are carrying a Longinus with you –you’re shit out of luck.”

  The Devil froze, a memory of a talk the team had with Midna when they just entered floor 40, something about how they needed to talk with her before they fought the Boss on this floor.

  Looking at Antares’ expression, the dwarf smirked; “So your Guide is actually competent, good to know.”

  “As you fought mostly middle and low css until now, I know it’s difficult to believe.” Kal then waved his hand and a Common Grade Gauntlet appeared on top of the table; “This is a pair of Silver Bone Gauntlets dropped from a Skull Bear on floor 41, try it. You will understand.”

  Antares slowly removed his own gauntlets and put them away –at first gnce, Kal’s gauntlets didn’t seem that distinct from any other, but the white-colored aura being emitted was another matter entirely; the Silver Bone gauntlet’s aura seemed heavier, purer, and overall a magnitude simply better. Putting them on, the Devil instantly felt a massive change –if before his gauntlets increased his strength by one or two tons, this time it increased by at least 10 tons, perhaps even more.

  ‘That’s… absurd! What would equipment from floor 90 be like then? Would everyone on the said floor have the raw stats of a Super Css, perhaps even a Heavenly Css being?’ Antares thought inwardly while clenching and unclenching his fist, trying to get a measure of the strength given by the gauntlets.

  “Heh, I had the same reaction when I went through floor 41 the first time,” Kal smiled nostalgically; “You won’t believe how absurd the stuff on the Upper Floor is.”

  Still distracted by the boost from the gauntlets, Antares absently asked, “Upper floors?”

  “That’s floor 71 and up.” Added Kal while taking another swing of his drink.

  ‘So floors 1 to 40 are the Beginner Floors, floors 41 to 70 are the Middle Floors, while 71 to 100 are the Upper Floors?’ Though Antares inwardly, while removing the gauntlets, the weird wave of weakness he felt not much ter was quite a downer in his mood.

  Kal looked at Antares with some pity; “It will always feel like this from now on, and the higher you go, the worse this sensation will be.” Kal pursed his lips; “So much so, that some people in the Upper Floors outright refuse to unequip their armor, the sense of weakness—even one artificially created like this—is way too overwhelming for some.”

  Antares closed his eyes and put the gauntlets back on the table; “Can’t say I like it either, but at the end of the day… It's not your strength, not my strength. It’s just something borrowed from a tool, something that can be taken from me anytime.”

  Kal's smile softened; “You got it together at least.” his gaze turned slightly mencholic; “It took me… quite a bit to get myself together.”

  “You of all people?” Antares raised an eyebrow and sipped his drink.

  Kal snorted, “We’ve all been arrogant youths once.” he shook his head; “Power got to my head, and megalomania rained in my dreams –it cost me a good friend and almost my marriage for me to snap out of it.”

  “How old are you anyway, kiddo?” curiously asked Kal.

  “18”

  “Damn! What are they feeding the kids down in Hell again?” Kal excimed in a more jovial tone, Antares could sort of see the man was starting to get tipsy, The Devil heir was certainly in for a fascinating conversation.

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  After going through more than seven bottles of whisky, Kal was drunk enough that he started spewing nonsense.

  “Di-Did you know mias are absolute assholes,” Kal slurred between hiccups; “And they— *hiccup*—and they don’t even have assholes, to begin with, hehehe.”

  Seeing as the dwarf was having the time of his life, Antares smiled and continued fanning the fmes; “Oh? So how do they get to the bathroom then?”

  Kal stopped and cupped his chin; “… through the mouth?” he then smirked wobbly; “They sure as hell spill a lot of shit that way, hahaha.” The Dwarf’s ugh seemed quite contagious.

  Still quite drunk, Kal directly picked up a whisky bottle and drank it up like it was cheap beer, with an absent throw, he tossed the bottle on the brass table, instantly shattering it.

  “Oops.” Kal ughed while looking around, but the moment his gaze nded on the shattered gss, his mood instantly did a one-eighty. “Is that… ” he stretched his rough hands and picked up a broken piece of gss, which appeared to be the bottle’s tip, forming a strange broken gss ring.

  “A ring…” Kal’s voice turned somber; “Have I ever told you about them, McTorke?”

  ‘Is he talking with himself? Or someone else called McTorke?’ Antares pondered but decided not to interrupt the man, who was clearly having a moment.

  “It was centuries ago –I was just a wee little d who had barely three decades under his beard, my party and I had been climbing the tower with a single-minded focus that impressed even the members of the Cult. We ddi some crazy stuff, kicked ass, destroyed a bunch of annoying obstacles and much more.” Kal stopped, his gaze turning forlorn, the drunkenness seemly disappearing from his voice; “We had just entered floor 87 and were resupplying in one of the first cities. You and your team were a few floors behind us, but you were catching up fast, so Kira has been urging us to hurry up. Desbel having none of his shit, decided we needed the rest after such a hard boss—and being his wife—she won the argument.”

  “Gaunther went to search for a brothel like always—and being the alcoholic that I am—I went to find a bar, pub, tavern –whatever served me strong alcohol for cheap.” Kal seemed to swallow dryly; “It was there, I remember it like it was yesterday. Grebol’s Corner, a small bar that had homebrewed alcohol, it was delicious,” Kal seemed to briefly salivate before returning to his solemn mood; “Everything was fine for a while, but then I heard a rumor, something that would consume and almost ruin my life for centuries to come.”

  Kal’s tone lowered a few timbres; “That rumor… ” Kal dragged on, pursing his lips; “as a smith on his journey, I couldn’t help but be attracted. It was about a Ring, a Legendary Ring –said to give whoever wore it unprecedented skill and precision in bcksmithing. Turning even a simple peasant who never held a hammer, into a Divine Smith worth of Legends.”

  “I completely lost it…” he almost sobbed; “Spending every single Dream Coin I had, selling Epic Grade drops just for simple news or clues, but it was an eternal search, just clue after clue, without anything concrete for decades.” Kal sighed loudly; “Then… the Party reached the Frontier…” his gaze turned distant, a small sense of dread building at the depths of his eyes; “And if you think the Upper Floors are bad, the Top Floors, The Peak floors, the Frontier… they are –absolute nightmares. A single misstep can and will get you killed and worse.”

  “If you don’t fully commit, you cannot progress on the frontier.” he closed his eyes; “You need to seize every single advantage, every beneficial Enchantment, every little equipment upgrade. But my mind wasn’t on it, I dragged my party down, and I almost killed everyone.” The guilt in Kal’s voice was palpable, and even a Devil like Antares was starting to feel some sympathy.

  “But I didn’t care, all I wanted was the Ring, there was nothing on my mind but the Ring.” Kal was on the verge of tears –his drunken emotions a chaotic mess; “I was the reason why we split up McTorke. The team couldn’t continue with me acting like that, it simply couldn’t.”

  “Desbel and Kira disappeared… the st I’ve heard of them was a century ago —when someone tried to attack their home on the 97th floor, after that? Nothing…” Kal seems to shed a tear, the ck of news about his friends is clearly hurting him a lot.

  “Gaunther ended up eloping with our Guide Britanya… but only recently I discovered a piece of old news about them joining the court of the Lion Queen on floor 99 –and disappearing during the battle against the Nine Nethers Abyss Dragon –around two decades ago…”

  Kal hiccuped, his burning eyes glistering with the start of tears before he somehow recomposed himself. “I’ve met this gal recently, you know? Her name is Philiah, and she has been helping me… a lot.” his voice turned heavy with even more feelings; “We’ve been thinking of building a family together… It’s the happiest I’ve been since I entered this pce, with her, I discovered what true happiness was like.”

  Kal finally seemed to smile, a very precious smile that Antares had never seen on the gruff dwarf previously. “I finally understood what my Father wanted to tell me all those years ago; ‘Sometimes, happiness is so close, that we can’t see it from so high up on our Dreams’,” Kal added with a smile. He paused for a moment, as if awaiting this so-called McTorke answer, but when Antares opened his mouth to reply, Kal continued.

  “If you agree with that statement… then why McTorke!? Why would you commit the same mistake as me?” Kal shouted, his tone almost begging, “Why go after the Brass Ring? Stop being foolish, Brother! It will take everything from you.” Antares noticed the dwarf wasn’t even looking at him and seemed to be very emotionally invested in talking with someone who wasn’t there.

  “...Yes, I acquired the stupid Steel Ring. It just cost me… everything.” Kal sighed, energy visibly draining from his body, it almost visibly hurt the man to talk about this topic; “But I’ve sold it to the Cult.”

  “You don’t believe it?” Kal chuckled, “My bcksmithing skill is just my own, not from some Ring.” Antares could feel the sheer disgust the man put on that st word.

  “You are already the best goddam–” Antares flinched, but Kal continued; “Engineer in this pce, why go after the Brass Ring?”

  “No McTorke, you may be a Gnome, but you are my brother.” Kal sighed, “I’ve never envied your talent, only held immense respect for it… brother.”

  “I know that is the Ring speaking, not you…” Kal lowered his head, a tear running down his cheek; “Know that I will take your name with me to the grave, brother. No matter what happens, no matter what you do.” The Dwarf then leaned on the table and fell asleep.

  Antares just stayed quiet, his mind repying the drunken ramblings of an old man, the story of how some cursed Legendary ring split a party of good friends and how the man saw his brother, who was apparently a Gnome, go down the same cursed path.

  Seeing as Kal was probably going to sleep for a while, Antares decided to clean the workshop, which, thanks to his Force Telekinesis, was an easy task he accomplished in barely a few minutes.

  With nothing else to do, and feeling it would be quite rude to abandon Kal after he basically dumped his life story on him, Antares decided to train his Force Telekinesis until he woke up. So the devil summoned a jar filled with differently colored sand from his Pocket Space and started separating it into even piles using his Force Telekinesis alone.

  It took a couple of hours, but Kal finally woke up.

  “... you are still here then?” the dwarf grumbled in a raspy and dry voice.

  “I thought it would be rude to leave in the middle of our talk.” Antares swiped his hand and put his training tools away; “You dropped quite a few bombs on me as well, so having some time to think was quite nice.” The fact that his next Goetia was almost finished as well was also another positive note in his books.

  “I did, didn’t I?” The Dwarf sighed and went towards the hidden freezer and picked up a gallon of cool water, which he began to drink; “Sorry about that, I tend to ramble when I am drunk…”

  He then looked at Antares from the corner of his bzing eyes; “You are not thinking of going after the Rings, are you?”

  “Rings? Wasn’t just one or two?” asked Antares, genuinely confused.

  “I guess you at least deserve an expnation for what I put you through…” Kal sighed, “On the Upper Floors of The Tower, hidden from both beast and man, wanted by the people of the mountain or the sky, and hated by the Eater of Dreams –there is a set of Rings. No one knows how many there are in total, and only one man collected 10 of them.”

  Antares raised his eyebrow, clearly interested; “Who?”

  “Ajuka Astaroth.”

  Antares almost did a spit take, his eyes close to popping out due to the sheer surprise.

  Kal ughed at his reaction; “Yeah, people always think Sirzechs was the scarier one,” Kal grinned; “There was a very good reason why no one was able to destroy Ajuka Astaroth’s obelisks to this day. We consider him the Patron of Professions for a very good reason.”

  “I still can’t get the grip on why those Rings are so important.” Antares sighed; “I know they offer some absurd bonuses, but you can only wear two anyway.”

  The dwarf cackled; “Do you think that's just it?” he shook his head; “Antares, those Legendary Rings occupy your extra slot. And you can have as many as 20 being used simultaneously.” the devil froze, finally starting to grasp why McTorke and Kal wanted them so much.

  “The Steel Ring of Bcksmithing, the Brass Ring of Engineering, the White Ring of Ice, the Red Ring of Fire, the Yellow Ring of Earth, the Blue Ring of Water, the Purple Ring of Lightning, the Green Ring of Nature, the Gss Ring of Wisdom, the Bck Ring of Darkness, the Bright Ring of Light, the Duskgold Ring of Twilight, the Jeweled Ring of Prosperity, and the Golden Ring of Rulership.” Kal exhaled, “Those are all the Rings that I know. But it’s a certainty that there is more.”

  “There are some rumors here and there, like —you can fuse all the Elemental Rings to form a unique item called the Prismatic Rings of Elements, but the only person to even possess more than three Elemental Rings simultaneously was Ajuka Astaroth.” Kal sighed once more, feeling a headache beginning, but when he saw how calm and just normal Antares was, he started to feel a little skeptical.

  “Are you not even a little bit tempted?” The Dwarf narrowed his eyes, searching for the telltale signs of greed.

  “Of course not.” Antares shook his head. Kal’s suspicions grew; “Why? Just one of them can make you basically a God in their theme.”

  Antares ughed; “It’s because it is all worthless in the end.”

  “Worthless…” Kal mumbled, a little speechless.

  “I can admit that they could perhaps help you with training, but…Yes, that’s right, they are worthless, completely and utterly worthless.” The Devil gave a toothy smile; “I want to get out of the tower, to get back to my family, to see the real world again. Epic or Legendary items might as well be paperweights outside, even less than that…”

  “This Dream is nice, full of fluff and empty decorations, but at the end of the Day? It’s just a Dream.” Antares ughed, “Don’t you want to feel the real wind blowing on your face? The heat of the sun warming your skin? To see the smiles of the family you have almost forgotten?”

  “Since when did you stop Dreaming Gelbardolzan Kaldurac McTorke? Since when did you stop moving forward?” Antares' smile turned outright predatory; “Don’t you want to get out of this prison, McTorke?”

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  AN: And here ends the bonus chapter, hope you guys liked it. Next chapter, we should go back to climbing, and a few fluff moments with the girls are on their way as well.

  Hope you guys liked how I approached Antares' bcksmithing journey here. Initially, I thought about making it more gradual, etc, but thinking more about it, that wouldn’t make sense. Antares has way too many tools, way too good a control over his body to take too much time learning basic smithing. He is no way a master of course, as that would require lots of experience.

  We are also introduced to a little bit more wordbuilding on the factions inside The Tower and Kal’s backstory. Won’t say much more to not spoil stuff for you guys, hope you have fun.

  Answer:

  Well, for lightning users temptes, I would go with Indra(Myth), Raiden(Genshin), Enel(EoS to have access to Haki), and Sasuke, the st one mostly for the convenience that all other ninja stuff provides.

  ~ClearSkySage