Lord and Cript were still much better at this than I was, but I was at least able to help in small parts. Cript actually ended up borrowing an idea from the Shield and Spear Heroes world. To add to that my weapons all now also came with similar gems to theirs on their weapons. "This spell matrix is unbelievable." Cript said with a smirk as he was working on Frozen Pride.
“Oh?” I hummed curiously. “What do you mean?” I asked curiously, looking over at what was special about Frozen Pride.
"Well, for starters these gems on the weapons aren't just rare, they're straight up raw code condensed and forged into a solid form. The weapons themselves are actually nothing special, it's all the gem. It's like putting a jet engine on top of a Model T car and somehow it works. An Admin made these things clearly. It's basically an early version of my Assistant device."
“I don’t know if I should feel insulted by you saying my weapons, the thirteen items that’s a Key Stone to Nothingness itself...or be impressed at how good those gems are.” I frowned.
"I was talking about Spear and Shield Heroes weapons." Cript said, adjusting Frozen Pride a bit. "The fact there are four, a bow, Shield, sword and spear gives us four perfect blueprints on how to modify them to your other weapons."
“Sorry, thought you meant my weapons.” I said sheepishly. “But that is interesting...wonder who designed these things then.” I said while picking up the stone and looking it over, using my new Code Reading ability to see who actually made it.
"Someone with talent." Lord said, working on Sharpshooters. "And coming from me, you know they must have been good."
"And he hardly ever complements another's work." Cript said. Looking at Frozen Pride, it's design wasn't all too different, just the large green gem in the center some inches inside the Shield itself. "This will completely change how weapons are used."
"And make you a profit extra?" Lord asked.
"Side bonus." Cript laughed.
“The one time I need to know who the hell made this…” I muttered while looking over one of the gems closely.
"And… done." Cript said, hands raised from Frozen Pride. "Now, for the field test. If this works then we can have a real viable means of dealing with the front lines." He then handed it over to me. "Oh, I also wanted to give you something...well, someone technically." Cript said, raising his Assistant. "Izzy, register new user Ben."
"Registered." A voice coming from both out Assistants said. Suddenly in my party menu, in a small side menu under mine popped the name Izzy, no HP or anything. "Hi. I'm Izzy."
“Hi.” I said while taking Frozen Pride. “And...what are you if I may ask?” I asked curiously.
"That's a bit of a story." Cript said. "After… the whole Andy and Mars incident, I was roaming Connection Cities streets when I saw some Shadow Creatures in an alleyway. Killed them but they killed someone already. Thankfully her nurel Sonic flash drive scanned her brain waves before she died and I uploaded that, her, to a PC. Izzy has basically been my Assistant inside the Assistant."
"Thanks to how the Assistant device works and my primary installation to the Freak Inc quantum computer mainframes, I can help you identify, locate, learn or research whatever you ask in seconds." Izzy said.
“Hmm…” I started. “What’s the current stock value of Freak Inc?” I asked curiously, just having that off the top of my head.
"A single stock in freak Inc currently costs 7.9 Quatacools. That's a Centillion with fifteen times the normal Zeroes, but Cript in showing good faith with partners and child companies, offers then up to five stocks free as a show of good faith and strengthening bonds. It's how he has grown the company to what it is today."
“Cool.” I nodded.
"It's never failed." Cript said.
“Good to know.” I nodded. “Izzy, given that I’m using Freak Inc resources, how soon do you think I’m going to officially prove Cript wrong with my Pure Crystals?”
"Given your current rate of progress, am estimated five years. Three if you accelerate the process via Alchemical matter alterations." Izzy said.
"Well shit." Cript laughed.
“Oh, I actually forgot Alchemy was on the table.” I said with a smile. “Thanks Izzy, that’ll help. Also ha! Told ya.” I said in triumph at being proven right.
"Har har. Now try out the upgrades already." Cript said, rubbing the top of my head and messing up my hair. "Oh, to utilize the crystals properly I did have to alter the shields stats… So check that."
I nodded while double checking Frozen Pride’s stats, thinking it wouldn’t be too different than what it normally was with it’s heavy defense, special defense and magic stats.
Att: 0
Def: 60
Spe Def: 60
Mag: 70
“Seems...weirdly lower than I thought.” I said honestly.
"Actually that's based on percent it adds to your attack damage, or other stats. So it's more like zero percent, sixty percent, ect. Your current physical attack damage is 508. So that's the damage the Shield can do physically since it adds no damage. But, only some shields can have physical attacks, Frozen Pride here can at most bash, which deals half your physical Damage."
”That’s why Frozen Pride is more Magic Based than anything.” I said honestly.
"Yes but, magic damage is still affected by physical Damage unless it has a stat for magic damage on it. So Frozen Pride, much like Shield Heroes Shield, can mostly be used for healing and defense, unless you use curse magic. But that's a double edged sword, or Shield in this case, since it does double your physical Damage on the target, but costs Mana AND HP to cast. The really powerful curse attacks can and often kill the caster."
I blinked as I raised Frozen Pride and an Ice Cage surrounded Cript. “You do know that Frozen Pride’s whole thing is that it’s Ice Magic right?” I asked. “I understand what your getting at, and that’s cool...but you made it sound like Frozen Pride magically didn’t have what it could normally do.”
"Oh it can, but it can't do damage." He said, breaking the cage open.
“You sure about that?” I asked, Cript seeing on his hud that he actually took some damage from just the cold of it. “You forget, this thing was made by a magical ice rock in the middle of space. Not only can it freeze damn near anything, it’s Ice Magic does damage, puts dots on things, and other suck fancy crap.” I said honestly.
"Passive damage must not be affected then." Cript thought aloud. "But that aside, I've preloaded a few selections, alternate shields, Shield types, ect. Check them out."
“Um...sure.” I said while pulling up a small window to see what he did with the shield types and alternate shields.
Frozen Pride was my Shield, but now, thanks to this Gem, it was one of several categories. Mainly small, medium, large, which Frozen Pride was filed under, and Greatsheild. Small Shield had… oh my God. I clicked it, now holding Goofy's Shield, the game still on the Shield and in the center of the Mickey Mouse icon. "Like it? I had a feeling that would be perfect."
“It’s amazing.” I said while swapping it to Save the King. “Save the King is still just a bit better shaped than Frozen Pride.” I said honestly.
"As you can guess this gem is solely used for shields. Finding shields in a dungeon or buying them the gem absorbs the weapon to add it to the list. Selling them is as simple as telling the gem to eject the Shield to sell. Absorbing a second Shield you already have actually gives you one of two options. Either save it as a backup in case you break the first, or combine it with the first to boost it's stats by one point each."
“Cool.” I nodded. “So, now onto all my other weapons since we’re using the gems.”
"Not done just yet." Lord said. "Frozen Pride was the easiest as it was basically a copy and paste job from the Shield Heroes weapon, with some modifications. Sharp Shooters here are similar but still vastly different from a bow, but Lunatic and Lindworm will be done soon."
“Hopefully Lindworm wasn’t being rude, the old Wyrm is still a little iffy on changes if it wasn’t from evolution.” I said honestly, having tried to tinker with it only to get hissed at.
"We actually had to extract him to begin the modifications. But I think he doesn't mind." Cript said, counting down from three. Once he reached Zero, The Wyrm himself flew over us, accompanied by an elegant light blue Wyrm. "I think he's currently happily distracted."
“I mean, he’s probably happy to finally get laid after god knows how long.” I said honestly.
"We actually plan for you to at will summon him out of the lance for up to an hour a day. In combat." Lord said. "You can summon him whenever outside of combat, cause he likely will want to be with his lady friend. You'll still be able to use the Lance's just fine without him in them as they will still draw power from him, but also have to draw half that extra power from you to make up for him not being inside the weapon."
“Sounds about right.” I nodded. “Good to know.” I nodded. “So how strong can Frozen Pride and Lindworm hold?” I asked curiously while double checking the code on Frozen Pride at least to see if I could make any small tweaks.
"Actually, this gem has a unique power that We didn't know existed." Cript said.
"Judging from the way it was made, the craftsmanship and skill, this was a cycle two, maybe even Cycle one admin artifact." Lord stated.
"And there was just four of them on that world, not counting their reflections respectively, meaning there is a cycle two or another cycle one Admin somewhere in hiding that made these."
"Thankfully we can replicate it by having the originals." Lord said.
“I mean, we can go to Shield Hero world and find the original gems, I can figure out how they were originally made, then we can just make a ton of them.” I said honestly.
"Already ahead of you." Lord said.
“Cool.” I nodded. “But...do either of you know what Null is?” I asked curiously.
"We share the same memories Ben, yeah." Cript said.
"Seen one before. Only time I've been worried." Lord said.
“Alright...so why the hell does the one that showed me how a Cycle ‘ends’ looked exactly like one of my children?” I asked. “Specifically Jenny...her face wasn’t there, and the cloak was really good at hiding her body shape...but the fact she got past all the security I made specifically to make sure shit like that doesn’t happen, her scent...and even her tone of ‘shh’ tipped me off…” I said while looking between the two. “Who would have sent my own child to give me that little lesson on what Null does to the End of a Cycle?”
"Fuck if we know." Lord said.
"We've known about them but never really spoken to or encountered one. As for why it looks like Jenny, also no idea." Cript said.
I sighed out bitterly. “Of course…” I muttered. “Only more questions than answers with that crap..”
"Well who ever said knowledge comes easy…" Cript said, a thoughtful look on them.
I stared at Cript with a deadpan expression. “Really?”
"I might actually know a way to learn something about the Nulls."
“Oh?” I asked curiously. “How so?”
"I'll have to look into it first, but if I am right then we can at least learn something."
“Can I have an explanation on how you can learn about them?” I asked honestly.
"Next chapter." Cript said.
“Cause of course…” I grumbled. “Alright...so what new things are we going to do with my weapons?”
"Next chapter. This feels long enough." Lord said.
"Fine fine..." I sighed out.
To be continued...