Chapter 128: The Fifth Suit

[Genesis Forge: Prototype restoration completed]

[Environmental design request detected]

[Standard crystal filtration: INSUFFICIENT for Level 15 conditions]

[Suggested material route: Biological-crystalline hybrid]

[Warning: Sustained production will require high Essence output]

Serah picked up the regulator and ran a scan. "Living filters. You could keep the air moving inside a sealed suit."

"If the crystal can draw Essence from the surroundings," Alvian said, "it won’t need someone filling it every few minutes."

"Pressure seals?" Thorn asked.

"Built into the shell. Armor that resists dissolution, with filtered air and an emergency reserve. But I’ll need your engineers to test each piece."

"You’ll have them," Thorn said. "I’ll provide three experienced combat delvers. Jace Morrow is one. The other two will come from the Consortium roster."

Hendricks made a note. "And who’s running things while you lot are underground? Because I am not becoming mayor as well as messenger."

"The block council stays in charge," Tobias said. "You keep the network working. Thorn’s people keep the freight routes safe. Nothing stops because six idiots decide to visit a locked basement."

Serah reached for the map. "I want three weeks. We need pressure tests, food estimates, spare filters, and a way to record what we find."

"Three weeks," Thorn agreed. "No earlier."

Tobias folded the old badge into his palm. "Then I’ll mark the route tonight."

Another warning crystal blinked on Hendricks’s belt.

"North lift reports a crawler chewing through the gate," he read. "Lovely."

Tobias grabbed his coat. "I’ll deal with the gate. Alvian, start with the air filter. If it eats my face when I put it on, I’m sending you the bill."

```

┌──────[ Profile]──────┐

│ [Host]: Alvian Vance

│ [Level]: 70

│ [Talent]: Clearwater/Dissolution/Reformation [Unique]

│ [Skills]: Genesis Forge [S-RANK]

│ Abyssal Dissolution Domain [S-RANK]

│ Void Step: Annihilation [S-RANK]

│ Severing Void Edge [S-RANK]

│ Dissolution of Form [CONCEPTUAL]

│ Clearwater Palm [D-Rank, Enhanced]

│ [Weapon Mastery]: Short-Sword [MAXIMUM, evolved]

│ [STR]: 530 | [AGI]: 290 | [VIT]: 855

│ [INT]: 215 | [Essence]: 287

│ [Karma Points]: 53

│ [EXP Bank]: ~4,737,100

│ [World Will]: Monitoring (creation-tolerant)

│ [System Version]: 3.0 → 4.0 (1/2 conditions met)

│ [HP]: 1,710/1,710

│ [Genesis Forge]: Apprentice

│ [Patients Healed]: 231

│ [Creation EXP]: ~849,100

│ [Array Status]: SELF-SUSTAINING

│ [Alliance Status]: FORMAL FIVE-PARTY ACCORD SIGNED

│ [Bounty Status]: FORMALLY VOIDED

│ [Criminal Charges]: DISMISSED

│ [Crown Posture]: NEUTRAL STATEMENT, REVIEW REQUESTED

│ [Dimensional Connectivity]: 7 LAYERS RESTORED

│ [System Classification]: RESTORATION PROTOCOL

│ [System Origin]: RESTRICTED

│ [Accord]: MUTUAL DEFENSE, TECHNOLOGY, TRADE, JUSTICE

│ [Version 4.0 Condition 2]: IN PROGRESS

│ [Warrens Anomaly]: LEVEL 15+, SOURCE UNKNOWN

│ [Next Priority]: EQUIP LEVEL 15 EXPEDITION

└─────────────────┘

```

The first suit lasted nineteen seconds.

HSSSS!

Its glass faceplate turned cloudy. A crack shot across the neck seal, and green test gas rushed inside.

Serah hit the emergency switch.

"Dead," she said.

Corrin Vex stared at the melted shell sitting in his testing chamber. "That’s two thousand credits of crystal."

"It’s also why we used a dummy," Serah replied. "Unless you wanted to volunteer."

"I’m beginning to see why nobody invited me underground."

By the end of the first week, ruined armor plates covered the workshop. The filters worked, but the seals kept breaking under sudden pressure changes.

POP!

The dummy’s helmet flew across the room.

"Wonderful," Vex said. "It can launch the wearer’s head into the next district."

"A flexible living seal and a second pressure ring," Alvian said, retrieving the helmet.

"Build it," Serah replied.

By the second week, five pale suits hung from the workshop racks. Living crystal fibers ran through their armor. Rib chambers recycled air, and Clearwater filters removed the test gas. Without an external Essence supply, the suits kept working.

[Ding!]

[Genesis Forge production milestone registered]

[Five biological-crystalline environmental units completed]

[Ambient Essence recycling: STABLE]

[Creation Roulette: 28x MULTIPLIER]

[Creation EXP awarded: +52,900]

[Creation-tier growth processed]

[Level increased: 70 → 73]

[Version 4.0 unlock conditions: 1/2]

[The System suggests testing the suits on something less expensive than your friends]

’Agreed.’

Alvian opened his EXP Bank before the final inspection.

[Ding!]

[EXP Bank allocation confirmed: 237,100]

[STR +5 | AGI +5 | VIT +5 | INT +5 | Essence +3]

Serah was already shouting for another pressure test.

On the twentieth day, Tobias stood inside a suit while Vex adjusted the clasps around his mechanical shoulder.

"Can’t feel my damn fingers," Tobias complained.

"They’re metal," Vex said.

"They were metal yesterday too."

Serah tapped the helmet. "Talk into the throat crystal. We need to know whether the channel works while the shell’s sealed."

"I can hear you, unfortunately."

"Perfect."

Inside the chamber, pressure dropped, the air turned green, and a weighted arm knocked Tobias backward.

BANG!

"Who put that in the test?" he roared.

"I did," Serah said through the speaker. "A guardian won’t ask before hitting you."

Tobias got up, checked his air indicator, and raised his mechanical middle finger at the viewing window.

The pressure, air, and filter indicators stayed blue.

At dawn the next morning, six people met at the closed lower lift.

Jace Morrow tightened his shield straps. Beside him stood Warrick Selby, the former Magnus guard commander, wearing a Consortium crest. Her replacement arm clicked as she loaded spare blades.

Pell Ossuary stood beside Jace, a launcher built into her right forearm prosthetic.

"Don’t worry," she said. "It’s Consortium work. The last employer was a cheap bastard."

"Your last employer tried to kill me."

"He had terrible management skills too."

Warrick made a quiet sound that might have been a laugh. Then she looked at Tobias. "Who’s giving the orders?"

"I am. You command fights, not the route. Jace takes front. Pell watches rear. Nobody wanders off."

Serah counted the suits hanging from the supply cart. "Five suits, six people."

"Alvian won’t be wearing one," Tobias said.

"I know," she replied. "I want him to explain what happens if the air strips the skin off his face."

Alvian flexed his fingers and drew a thin layer of Clearwater over them. "I’ll manage. If the readings change, you tell me before I notice the hard way."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s the one we’ve got."

Serah handed each escort a communication crystal. At the surface, Hendricks’s relay signal crackled once, then steadied.

"Six in, six out," he said. "I don’t want to fill out missing-person forms for any of you."

"Tell Martha I’ll be back," Alvian said.

"You tell her yourself when you come up," Hendricks answered.

The lift dropped.

CLANK! CLANK!

They crossed the fourteenth-level tunnel as another pulse shook the lights. Jace touched the wall.

"Still warm," he said.

"You keep saying that," Pell replied. "I keep expecting soup."

Tobias led them down a broken maintenance stair, past the point where the official map ended. An old survey mark scratched into the wall matched the one on his brass plate.

"My team stopped near here," he said. "Stay close."

Past a split in the rock, the floor dropped and a strip of exposed steel curled inward.

HSSSS!

Serah checked her suit. "External corrosion climbing. Filters holding."

Tobias glanced at his pressure gauge. "Welcome to fifteen."

The floor pulled sideways. Serah hit Jace’s shield as he planted a stone anchor. "Gravity shift," he said. "Hands on the wall. Now."

Smooth walls of fused dimensional crystal stretched ahead. Pale lights woke as the party moved, fed by Essence channels beneath the floor. Not even dust marked the ceiling.

Jace touched a wall, then quickly pulled his glove away. "The whole place is drawing energy."

"Three hundred years and the lights still work," Serah said, recording the channels. "Our Academy can’t keep a corridor lamp working through winter."

Warrick lifted one finger. "Movement. Ahead."

Three human-shaped figures of blue crystal watched them. Their faces held only a glowing line each.

Pell raised her prosthetic. "Those aren’t welcoming staff, are they?"

One figure stepped left. Another stepped right. The third remained in the center, blocking the passage.

Warrick’s expression changed. "Formation. They’re measuring our range. Jace, barrier. Now."

BOOM!

A blue bolt struck Jace’s stone wall and blasted chips across the floor. The other constructs moved at the same instant, one low and one high.

"They know how to flank," Jace grunted.

Warrick ducked a second bolt and pointed. "Pell, left knee. Alvian, hold the center. Serah, get their timing."

Pell’s wrist launcher snapped open. Her C-Rank Bone Lance formed along the prosthetic and fired straight through the left guardian’s knee.

CRACK!

The figure fell, still fighting. Warrick drove a blade between its plates, and Jace trapped it in stone.

"It doesn’t stop when damaged!" Pell shouted.

"Then break the core," Serah answered. Her circuitry pad flashed three colored rings. "Upper chest. That’s where the energy turns before every shot."

Warrick stabbed where Serah pointed. The guardian shattered into pale fragments.

[Ding!]

[Rank 5 dimensional guardian identified]

[Combat pattern: COORDINATED DEFENSE]

[Archive boundary security detected]

[Threat source classification: CONSTRUCT]

The other guardians fired together. Jace’s wall cracked.

"They’re learning," he barked.

"So are we," Warrick replied. "Drop your wall on my count. Three. Two. Now!"

Jace dropped the barrier. Both bolts struck the wall behind them.

WHOOSH!

Alvian cut the central guardian apart with a narrow Severing Void Edge. Pell planted another Bone Lance in the last one’s chest, and Warrick drove her blade through the exposed core.