“I have some stuff to take care of in my status screens, might keep me busy for a little while,” I said. “If that’s alright with you two, of course.”

  Jen smiled bright. “Yeah, no problem. Artemis will keep watch while I get things packed up around here. Ain’t that right, Artemis?” Jen gave her girlfriend an elbow and Artemis rolled her eyes, before flashing Jen a playful smile and climbing up a nearby tree.

  “Once we’re somewhere more secure, we can talk some more about Vestiges, and this thing I got in my chest.” With that, I pulled out the hybrid ingots from my queue, taking a look at them briefly. Air and fire made lightning, less tame than electricity, but still very useful, especially in a combat situation. Air and water made ice, which as a cooling system would be more effective than water alone. For a moment, I regretted making my war drill with just water, but that drill was necessary to defeat the boss, so it wasn’t a complete loss. I’d definitely need some way to get more elemental ore though.

  Air and earth, finally, made a substance that my identification hung on translating for a long time, before finally returning as “aerogel.” While I had never had a chance to actually work with the substance, I still had it come up in a materials lesson. Aerogel was the least dense solid possible, being over 99% air while still remaining a surface. It was also remarkably resilient for something as light as it was, and an incredible insulator. While I had no idea what to use it for now, knowing I had it in my back pocket would be incredibly useful.

  Next, I opened the path store and found no new options for me to spend my points on, so I went ahead and bought Automation I. Speed would be a priority moving forward and my internal processor just wasn’t cutting it. While I definitely should build the rest of my foundational facilities, if I could push things even further, I’d be able to have all of the resources I needed while also being able to spend time working on developing new schema in the research lab. The flood of new information was positively mild compared to the skill evolutions, and I rode it out in peace.

  Automation I gave me three skills: Automated Facilities, Automated Procedures, and Automated Tools. I decided to first examine my crafting menu.

  The wash of information hit me like a brick as I slowly scrolled through the list. I would have to find some other way of filtering the list in the future, this was getting ridiculous in its complexity. Most importantly from the list, I realized that I couldn’t keep relying on my internal processor anymore, I needed to build some more base facilities. I set up my queue to make two forges, two assemblers, a smelter, and a sawmill. To my surprise, the queue automatically queued up the joiners required, which would make this process a lot more convenient in the future.

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  The next thing that drew my attention was the Mine item, so I pulled up its help menu entry.

  Well, that one device would single-handedly solve a lot of my resource problems for more or less indefinitely, so long as I could find the space to plant them all. Still, I went ahead and queued up one for each type of ingot I could make. I wondered at the ores that would be created from the hybrid ingots, if they would simply generate the component ores or if they’d generate hybrid ores, and from there allow for the construction of additional splices.

  I eyed the Wyrd Ore in my inventory, before reluctantly setting up a Wyrd Ore mine. Hopefully nothing would go wrong with using such an unknown material for such a foundational purpose.

  Suddenly, I remembered that I needed to build another Ergon Condenser, and queued that up. Wanting it to be done by the time I returned to the factory, I finagled the work order and got it slotted up to get started after the bicycles were finished. With that set, I added a few more items to the end of the queue that I thought would be useful.

  Despite requiring no physical effort, managing the crafting had got me sweating, and so I leaned back and let out a heavy breath, closing my eyes for the moment. A slow rain had begun to fall, soft drops falling onto my face, wiping away the blood and the sweat and the tears, the stains of my labor. I was not a hero, my exhaustion proved that much, but I didn’t need to be one.

  I opened my eyes to watch Jen pack, her short and curvy body moving with a dancer’s grace as she folded and sorted the limited belongings of her and her girlfriend. I just barely caught sight of Artemis in the trees, watching the surroundings with a hawk-like gaze that seemed to peer through all distractions and all obfuscation. These two were powerful, even if I didn’t know how exactly, which did make me worried about how strong this Chad would be.

  He couldn’t be allowed to continue as he was doing. I trusted Jen and Artemis with an ease that I knew emerged from my intuition, they were worthy of that trust, and I knew that they hadn’t exaggerated the truth about the situation in town. I would need to work fast, for certain, but I’d need to be precise, the stakes here may not be as grand as the entire world, but they were more immediate, more distinct. If I failed, then the blood of the innocent would be on my hands.

  I clenched my hands into fists, feeling the heat inside of my heart blossom. I would not fail them, I would simply not fail. Though the battles in the dungeon had left their mark, I had grown stronger from them, and I had access to a much wider selection of tools with which to be able to bring forth victory. With luck, I’d have the research lab to further customize my resources.

  The bikes finished their construction and I called all three from my inventory, before rising to my feet and strapping my helmet on. “Alright, let’s get out of here. We have work to do.”