The warehouse was right near the damaged section of the wall, packed to bursting with tools and piles of sand. It was surrounded by a yard was of stacks of stone blocks, almost as high as the wall itself, quarried who knows where.
"They used to come from Chasm City," Ted said after I asked him about it. "There's a vein of good stone right underground, that's got some magical property that makes it more durable. The Chasmers did, as you can imagine, strike a hard bargain. That's where you come in, lad. This be just normal stone, but you'll be transmuting it into blackstone if all goes as planned."
The dwarf approached the yard, disappearing among the stacks of blocks. He told me to wait a minute, and we shuffled uncomfortably in the empty building site, wondering where all the workers had gone. Moments later, a shimmer in the air showed that a previously invisible shield had gone down, and Ted waved at us to approach.
"That shield looked familiar," I said telepathically to the girls. "But I didn't take a good enough look."
Fortunately, they had. They each sent me a packet of memories, similar to how we could use the bond to browse each other's memories but much more deliberate, until I was looking at the shield from five different points of view. Unsurprisingly, Zery had the best eyes of all of us, being a dragon who soared through the skies and had to see things below from great heights.
I played back the footage, part of my mind sitting in my hauler and analyzing it using the computers. I know it was just a projection, but it felt real and useful, helping me focus and direct the mental energies of the group, so why not use it?
The results weren't 100% accurate, but I had an inkling.
"That was a Class-4 containment shield," I muttered. "Non-magical."
Had it been magical, we would have seen it with our mana senses. Unless there was a way to hide magic, which would make sense but also open up a whole new can of dried rations.
"Dried rations?" I heard Vespera ask, flabbergasted at the expression. Here and there, old ways of speech still slipped into my thoughts.
"Your mind is loud, my love," Zery said. "It always is, but now, this shield business bothers you."
We didn't have time to telepathically chat much more. Ted gestured at a tall stack of stones, which even though impressively tall, was still among the smaller ones. The twilight of the open skies lit the stones in fading reds, while the crystal lights cast hard shadows.
"Let's test the bulk transmutation on this stack here first," the dwarf explained, all business. "If it gets ruined, it's not too big of a deal."
"Makes sense," I said.
"I'll be watching," he said, and we took positions.
Holding hands wasn't strictly necessary; we had a shared mana pool no matter what, thanks to the changed bond, the upgraded class, and our new skills. We could merge magics without effort, manifest parts of each other—even though we barely tested that yet—but still, the feeling of touching each other felt intimate and most of all, it felt right.
Drawing deep from the common well of power, I brought my hand forward, dragging the girls' as well, and began to cast.
[Matter Transmutation X] activated without a hitch. The process was smooth, fast and discreet. It took a good chunk of mana, but nothing that our shared pool couldn't handle, and the stack of stones shimmered and shifted, like blurry reality or a hologram suffering from bad data connection.
Moments later, the image stabilized, but the blocks were changed. The irregular, murky white stone was replaced by perfect, mirror-polished black blocks. There wasn't a blemish or imperfection on them.
Ted grinned widely, immediately analyzing the new material with glee. "Matches with the blackstone block you showed me, and the whole club, the other day," he said as his eyes stopped glowing. "They'll recognize your signature. How many more can you do?"
"Probably this whole yard," I said.
The dwarf's smile widened. "For once, lad, I'm glad you decided to foolishly abandon all subtlety. You go on and transmute as much as you can, make waves, whatever, and we'll handle the fallout together. You and I and, well, the girls too. We'll be rich and powerful in no time."
We ended up running out of mana before doing the whole yard, but it didn't matter. There was more than enough blackstone to last Ted until well after we could transmute again, and my pockets were now a hefty pouch of coin heavier.
Then, in the warehouse, we talked about Fredrick Slyzarik. "He's the alchemist's cousin, if you were wondering," Ted said. "Twice removed or some igneous bollocks, who knows? They hate each other's guts. You can use it to get closer to the alchemist, help out Lee somewhat. The lad's making strides with the congealed slime you gave him, but he needs a little push. He's too shy otherwise."
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
Ted nodded, his gaze settling on Zery's head and horns poking out of the stacks of things as she roamed the warehouse, exploring. "I still can't believe you bagged a dragon," he said. "Shit, I didn't even think dragons were real. What element is she again?"
"Abyss," I said. I looked up to see Zery quickly avert her gaze, blushing as she heard my thoughts that I didn't say to Ted out loud.
"That's a mighty strange element," the dwarf said. "What's it do?"
I shrugged. "She can fly," I said. "We haven't tested anything else yet. By the way, did you know that I can do magic now?"
"No way!"
"Yes way!" came Vespera's voice from behind. "Hey Ted, can we use one of your white stones for a demonstration? I wanna see what sort of damage spacer boy's magic missiles can do."
She knew already, of course, but she wasn't one to pass a free chance to blow something up and maybe even impress Ted.
The dwarf hummed. "Can't say I'm not curious myself. What are your stats at, right now?"
There was a spike of chatter in the bond, the girls and I debating how to reply before deciding to trust him. Like with all important decisions, it was a unanimous vote or no risk at all, despite the girls more often than not deferring to me. That's why I made sure to vote last, even though with their ability to read my mind it didn't really matter much. At least I could read theirs as well, and know if they were lying with their vote to make me happy.
Also, these things happened quickly. We all hopped over to the same mind, usually mine, to enjoy a five-fold time dilation as we deliberated.
"All stats are sixty," I said. Ted cocked an eyebrow, and I answered the implicit question. "System shenanigans."
He paused. "System… shenanigans?" he asked, almost refusing to believe the implications of what I just said.
"Yep. We aren't breaking it, don't worry."
There must have been something on my face, because he looked at me with narrowed eyes for a moment before sighing and deciding it didn't matter. "Alright, do that block over there."
I readied my magic. In the space before me, geometric lines arranged themselves into the edges of an asymmetric dipyramid, the solid shape representing the magic missile. As usual, magic wafted from these lines in an electric blue-violet mist, before the missile shot forward and embedded itself in the stone.
"Not bad," Ted said as he looked at the hole drilled by the magic. Then he flinched backwards when the missile exploded, cracking the stone block and making the pieces sag and tumble. "Woah! Nuts and bolts! And all of this while you're out of mana with barely sixty stats?"
"Sixty per stat," I corrected him, wondering what he meant by barely.
"Ya, ya, yank my beard. Sixty per stat with an expenditure of what, a few mana units if my eyes are to be believed? Great vaulted ceilings of the below, that's some nasty power. And you didn't have magic last week, I know that for a fact. System shenanigans indeed. Should I worry?"
I shrugged. "I'll try not to make it necessary."
"You better," Ted admonished. "Plans are in motion and it's hard to accommodate for unknown variables, especially when they are of this… magnitude."
He didn't say more, but his thoughtful expression told us that he was thinking about ways to smooth those variables. I didn't know much of his plans by design, not wanting to get dragged into too much shit, and he respected that. At the same time, this meant it could be disruptive. An idea was forming in his mind, but he didn't say anything yet.
Instead, he asked about the computers and stuff from the dryadic race in our possession.
"We can bring you more," I said, answering the implicit question. "But first we have something we need to do. Remember when I said I wasn't going to break the System? Well…"
Ted sighed. "What now, lad?"
"You know how Calla is an anchor dryad?"
He eyed me sideways. The dryad in question was hiding behind Zery, who in turn was only visible because of her three-plus meters of height as she roamed the far reaches of the warehouse.
"Well you see," I pressed. "She gets to talk to the System. We have been tasked to fix it up after it took some damage."
"Can I help? What do you need?" Ted said immediately. He was too shrewd to let surprise and disbelief make him miss a chance to help the System itself.
"Right now? Time and elbow grease. We got that covered. In general? The usual shit. Cores and magic," I said.
"Easy. Consider it done," Ted said. "Wait here."