Chapter 7:
Note: Changed Mr. Burns to Mr. Hughes
Mark’s POV:
We began to walk to the shopping district again, the coin pouch at Lance’s hip clanged together as the metal discs clashed against each other. I continued to stew in my thoughts as we made it to the same shop as a few days ago and I took a deep breath as we entered the building again
“What took you four so long?”
The older man in the back looked at us with a coy smile as we greeted him
“Mornin’.”
“How are you, Mr.Hughes?”
“Nice to see you again.”
I nod to him as my greeting and he shook his head
“I’m fine, but I thought you needed this asap, then you're just gone for nearly 2 days? Tsk tsk.”
He joked, but soon got serious
“Anyway, I made a few custom changes to your Subar, Mark. Due to not having magic or mana, I made it have a small amount of mana poured into it already, but it won’t last too long 5-6 seconds.”
I raised an eyebrow as he set the black pants and shirt on the counter in front of him. I picked the nylon-like fabric up as I looked at the long sleeve shirt. There were no blue markings and the right hand had a fingerless glove on it as he spoke once more
“It’s an idea I’ve always licked around, never saw a point in it because the magic circuits that run this can’t intake anything from the wearer now, but that won’t bother you, right?”
He spoke with a smirk
“How does it work?”
I asked
“On the right hand, there is a button on the back of it, press that in and it will activate, you’ll become about 2 times more capable than you are now but just for those few seconds.”
I nodded
“2 times stronger with the right equipment is probably decent…”
“It’s better than average.”
Lance chimed in
“Subar is versatile, depending on what you want it to do, you can make yourself more durable or stronger, depending on the material and circuits, enchantments and alchemy too.”
I raised a brow as I sighted
“I think we sat on the in-depth explanation for tiers and subar long enough, so, who wants to explain tiers to me?”
Tetra raised her hand with a bright smile as she spoke
“There are 10 tiers. Tiers are how much someone can destroy in about 5-15 minutes depending on timeframe and tier requirements. Tier 1 means nothing. Tied 2 means that in 5 minutes you can reduce a building to rubble. Tier 3-5 is town block, multiple town blocks, and the town itself while tiers 6-8 are city block, multiple city blocks, and the city itself. However, past this is where you get to the point it’s hard to quantify accurately, tier 9 is domain level, and this is normally measured in 6 minutes or more because of traveling from spot a to b but this is the point where multiple cities can be destroyed. Tier 10 is… unknown, and often tossed out when talking about myths and such.”
I raised a brow at how she cut off but Rise spoke before I could ask Tetra to continue her impassioned explanation
“Tier 10 is ‘do not fuck with’ or DNFW for short. These are gods, dragons, and myths or transcendents.”
From how they spoke of myths, then seemed to be both a physical and tangible concept while I had a vague idea of what a transcendent was from the name alone, but I would talk about the main topic was, I looked to Mr.Hughes and he nodded
“Subar, or subdermal armor is a basic equipment with many variants depending on how you want it to specialize. They work by having the wearer push some of their aura or mana into the mana circuits and this will activate said armor, but as I said, depending on the type will depend on the reaction. The two main types are durability enhancing or physical enhancing, although you could have them specialized in one area of these like magic defense or physical impact nullification, it’s better to go broad spectrum as this is a hard piece of equipment to change.”
I nodded, there has been a lot of new information added to my understanding of this world yet I still had only the most basic understanding of how many things worked. I cracked my neck as I picked up the pants and shirt as I spoke
“If you can draw me up some basic blueprints for how mana circuits work, I might be able to help your design.”
Mr. Hughes blinked a few times before chuckling and heading into the door behind the desk, he soon appeared with several rolled-up pieces of paper as he told me
“I wish you luck deciphering-“
Before he could finish speaking I had unrolled the paper, I tossed my subar over my shoulder, and looked at the paper. It was Manila in color with black markings for the shirt but blue where I’m guessing the mana circuits were hidden. I looked over the design for a moment before I asked
“Is it possible to use an external source for power?”
Mr. Hughes gave me a quizzical look as he spoke
“Yeah… but a big blocky target would be an obvious weakness.”
I agreed with him but spoke
“Make several small ones? Or could you link them into a dimensional artifact or something?”
Mr. Hughes shook his head
“I like the enthusiasm kid, but the problem with the several small external chargers would be the smaller size, along with the fact that the time allotted per charger would be small. As for the extra-dimensional artifact idea… it’s unknown as such magic circuitry has never been completed .”
I thought for a moment about other possibilities but shook my head due to lacking knowledge about this topic, then I had an idea
“Liquids? Would it be able to absorb mana through a liquid applied to the sugar?”
Mr. Hughes looked at me for a moment but shook his head
“I get your idea kid, but the amount of extra work that would have to go into the magic circuits would be astronomical.”
I thought carefully before signing in disappointment
“However,”
Mr. Hughes started
“It's not impossible, just very annoying to do with little benefit. But, that little benefit is for normal people, so, what’s your idea?”
I smiled
“No clue.”
I spoke confidently and Mr. Hughes just stared at me coldly as I shrugged
“Why come up with an idea if the outcome is impossible from the start?”
My question hung in the air for a moment as me and Mr. Hughes looked at each other before he smiled
“Fair enough, if you can come up with a decent solution to integrate magic into a liquid, I will set up the subar for you.”
I smiled as I reached out, and we shook each other's hands in mutual understanding when Mr. Hughes spoke again
“But you best not destroy the one you just got thinking you’ll get a replacement while trying to experiment.”
I sighed exaggeratingly at his words causing him to laugh, as the four of us soon left the workshop. As me, Lance, Rose, and Tetra walked in silence, Rose spoke
“How do you expect to do something that many deem implausible?”
She asked, we walked side by side so she leaned forward to look past Lance’s broad chest, I smirked as I told her
“To become a chemical engineer, you have to learn a lot about chemistry. You know ice can melt into water, but did you know that air can become solid? It’s interesting, get it cold enough and you can make liquid or solid air. My idea is to find a way to dissolve magic into a liquid and create a plumbing system that can move it around… but that will depend on a lot of research and we don’t have much time… so till then, I will rely on other forms of chemistry to deal with my lacking strength.”
All three of them looked at me before Rose spoke
“I can confidently say I’m smarter than these two, and I also can say that I don’t understand a single word you just spoke.”
I laughed at her honest remark before saying
“Let’s go to the alchemy shop, maybe I can find a decent metaphor to explain my way of thought.”
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