As Bastion lay in bed with Seraphina on top of him, still connected, and Elyra hugging his side, he thought about the dream, which was far less intense than before. He remembered certain whispered words but couldn't piece together the puzzle.
This was strange to him, given his high levels of Wisdom and Intelligence. He should have been able to recall and make sense of such simple words, yet they continued to elude him.
Setting the matter aside for future rank-ups, he turned his thoughts to his new status.
He quickly bought the new skills before taking a closer look.
"Status."
[Name]: Bastion Diamondhart
[Age]: 25
[Class]: Armory Knight (Rank 2), Diamond Knight (Rank 3)
[Ability]: Space Node, Diamond Body
[Rank]: Rank 1
[Level]: 120
[Health]: 115/115
[Mana]: 115/115
[Strength]: 10
[Dexterity]: 10
[Vitality]: 11.5
[Intelligence]: 10
[Wisdom]: 11.5
[Charm]: 6
[Luck]: 20
[Status Points]: 20
[Arts]: Earth Magic 4, Light Magic 4, Shield 4, Smithing 3, Sword 3, Whip 3, Unarmed 3, Heavy Armor 3, Fire Magic 3, Water Magic 3, Dark Magic 3, Wind Magic 3, Riding 3, Enchanting 3, Summoning 2, Cannon 2, Taming 1, Cooking 1, Traps 1
[Skills]: Shield Bash 4, Block 4, Charge 4, Reinforce 4, Amplify 4, Slash 4, Parry 4, Taunt 3, Stab 3, Smash 3, Dodge 3, Dash 3, Jump 3, Summon Familiar(Zephy) 3, Diamond Armor 3, Diamond Edge 3, Diamond Shrapnel 3, Diamond Rain 3, Diamond Steed 3, Tame 1, Inventory 1, Armor Slot 1, Weapon Slot 1, Quick Slot 1, Facility Slot 1
[Skill Points]: 70
Once Bastion took a proper look, the first thing he noticed was his Intuition stat being replaced with Luck.
'Intuition turned into Luck? Why?' Bastion thought. 'Well, my ability to see fate is pretty weird, even by this world's standards. It isn't a skill or magic, but something closer to Elyra's talent for shadow specifically, rather than dark-type magic. Maybe there's more to this than I initially thought.'
He decided to shelve the matter and start experiments when he had the time. He just needed to look around in public places to trigger his talent, anyway.
Instead, his eyes drifted toward his level 4 Arts and Skills.
'Three Arts and seven Skills? Not bad at all. Elyra has thirteen at level 4, while I only have ten, but I have significantly more Skills at level 3 than her. Seems fair overall.'
'Yes, Master?' Elyra asked through telepathy.
'Nothing, Eli. Go back to sleep.'
'Yes, Master.'
He looked at his new skills and pushed the urge to start experimenting back down. He didn't even have any clothes to work with right now, and he certainly didn't want to wake the girls by suddenly storing the blanket.
So he decided to sleep off the rest of the day and start his experiments tomorrow.
The next day, Bastion began experimenting with his new skills and found them surprisingly convenient.
Inventory, for example, allowed him to store anything within reach, as long as there was enough internal space to fit it. It also did its best to maximize space efficiency per item, so an empty wardrobe would likely be filled with smaller items tucked inside.
Of course, when you remove the wardrobe, the items inside don't come along. The occupied space is what matters, after all, not the object itself.
That said, storing a filled wardrobe would take the items inside with it, and return them the same way, or so the experiment's results indicated.
Armor Slot made it easy to swap all the clothes and armor he had equipped, but only if he first put them on. Essentially, he had to get dressed twice, once to wear the armor and again for his regular clothes. This meant he still had to manually don and remove armor between uses for repair. Not as miraculous as he'd hoped, but far better than fighting in plain clothes.
It also conveniently made Elyra happy, since she could still help Bastion get dressed instead of being replaced by a skill, so Bastion considered it a win-win.
The Weapon Slot worked similarly, with the requirement that he had to hold the item first. It didn't have to be a weapon; anything he could grip could be stored and released within a certain size limit. This made weapon swaps in battle seamless. For now, he placed his cannon into the slot.
The Quick Slot had a limitation. It could only store consumable items. He couldn't, for some reason, store his sword in it. It was frustratingly restrictive, but not something he could complain about too much.
Finally, his most impressive skill, the Facility Slot, worked exactly as intended. He could transport his forge as long as it fit within a one-meter cube, essentially the current capacity of the slot. Eventually, he would need to level it up to fit all his machines and to gain more slots.
Once he was finished experimenting, Bastion called for a meeting with his brother to check on the cleanup. Half a year had passed, so the corpses had already been dissected and distributed among the soldiers. He certainly remembered Seraphina being especially thankful when she was given enough Scribe resources to last a century.
"You called for me, my lord?" Alexander asked as he kneeled in Bastion's study.
Given the contract between them, Alexander didn't have much choice but to be respectful unless he wanted to quit being the knight commander or start a hostile relationship with his brother and his very powerful weapon, which could massacre an army.
"You can relax when we're alone, brother. No need to be so tense. I just want a report on our little goblin tribe."
"They seem to have settled after gathering enough meat and offspring from the warthog territory. It appears they're interested in raising mounts. That said, they took heavy losses in the battle and will likely need a few decades to recover."
"Keep an eye on them, but make sure you're not discovered. I'm not willing to lose a scout just to gather information. Inform me if their numbers begin to grow and they become a threat to the territory."
"Yes, my lord. I suspect they plan to head south to the swamps once they've rebuilt their numbers, if their patterns over the past few decades are anything to go by."
Suddenly, Bastion was struck by a vision of the swamps, revealing an underground passage hidden beneath the mud. Deep within lay a cavern filled with Rank 2 Blood Iron, submerged in a lake of blood. The chamber was supported by the enormous corpse of a tortoise, long dead for millennia. Its slow decomposition had gradually shaped the land above, giving rise to the swamps that now spread deep within the Great Forest.
Once Bastion came to, he realized he had just glimpsed a vision of an extraordinary opportunity. That corpse was likely a Rank 4, or at worst a Rank 3. Even with its decay, it would fetch a substantial profit from the empire.
Even if he couldn't claim the corpse itself, the resources spawned from its demise alone were more than worth the effort. The vein of Rank 2 Blood Iron in the lake could be invaluable, not to mention the unique flora Seraphina could experiment with.
He had to get his hands on it.
He couldn't pinpoint its exact location just from the vision, but he had seen a landmark, a lone, withered tree standing tall against the swamp's caustic environment.
"Forget the goblin tribe. I want you to find the location of a lone withered tree in those swamps. It looks like wraithwood, so be careful. If it's too dangerous, just scout the safe area and have a map drawn of its surroundings."
"Yes, my lord."
"You're dismissed."
Alexander got up, bowed, and then headed outside, leaving Bastion to his thoughts.
He had never had a vision based on random information before. His visions had always focused on people, their deaths, and glimpses of the lives they had lived. It had grown more detailed since he received his class, but its nature had remained largely the same.
Now, for the first time, he received a vision of an opportunity, a fortune simply waiting to be claimed. It could advance his and Seraphina's plans to leave the kingdom by centuries, given the abundance of resources thriving in the area.
He looked at his status screen, focusing on the Luck attribute, before pondering deeply to himself. Whatever this was, it was clearly the source of his new ability.
'Will I start having more visions of luck when I receive random information? What is the connection between this and the deaths of others? Am I a protagonist now?' Bastion began questioning himself in depth. 'Well, I suppose I've always been a protagonist, given that I'm a hero, but Seraphina showed me what a true hero is supposed to be. Is it finally my time to shine?'
Bastion quickly shook the asinine thoughts from his head and refocused on the present. He still had to wait for the report on the swamps before even considering that cavern full of loot.
He began listing the tasks he needed to tackle while he waited. For starters, now that he was Rank 1, he had to resume training to develop the stats his stronger body could handle, which meant getting thoroughly beaten again. He also had to tour the dukedom to identify areas where he could improve efficiency, all while being limited to Rank 2 technology.
Speaking of technology, he needed to start improving his smithing and enchanting skills so he could craft more gadgets, either to sell or put to use. Perhaps building a TV could help alleviate Seraphina's boredom, even if there was an obvious lack of media. At worst, she could use it to catch up on the maids' gossip.
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While Bastion began his new life as a Rank 1, deep in the Great Forest near a growing goblin camp outside a cave, a young goblin crafted a halberd from stingers, tusks, and vines. He wore a tunic of stitched leather, a stark contrast to the mostly naked tribesmen around him.
He was considered a bit of an oddity among the goblins because of his eccentricities and unusual obsession with clothing.
In the village, the only ones permitted to wear armor were the warriors, whose gear was crafted from ant shells. Technically, he wasn't breaking any rules, since he wasn't wearing armor, just a very large loincloth that was wrapped around him.
Meanwhile, he was preparing for the inevitable war in the southern swamps, a conflict he would eventually be drawn into because of their psychopathic chieftain, who sought to expand his power beyond his means.
Still, credit had to be given where it was due, considering that the chieftain was close to achieving it, necessitating his own reincarnation just to prevent the chieftain from wreaking havoc.
"I swear to God, if I see that moldy douchebag again, I'm gonna burn his cavern to the ground."
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