Second Genesis

Chapter 428: Seams

Grey didn’t take Amunet’s questions to heart. Honestly, it didn’t matter much to him at all.

Even if he told her the real time he had spent on mechs, she probably wouldn’t believe him either.

Grey could count the number of times he had actually had a real mech-building session on a single hand. The first was right after he defeated the Wicked Forest Witch. The second time was the Esmeralda fiasco. The third was when he crafted a few Mechanical Jaw mechs and finished up his Helm Frame. The fourth was the time he had spent with Elowen.

Granted, each session was quite long, with the second being by far the longest. That one session could probably have been counted in days, and it was what had laid the foundation for much of what Grey could do now. After building a Prosthetic Mech, everything beneath that just felt easy. But ultimately, Grey had put in... maybe 100 hours of time, probably closer to 150 or so total, into learning how to craft mechs. He had honestly lost count, mostly because of Esmeralda always crashing out and killing him while his head was fuzzy.

Still...

There was no reason for him to be as good as he was already other than what he had already said.

He was a genius.

Other mech technicians had to dedicate decades, centuries, sometimes even more, to be capable of what he was.

That was all to say that he was technically telling the truth. It wasn’t his fault she didn’t believe him.

Of course... Prometheus may or may not have had some input on that. It was a lot easier to fix your mistakes when there was an omniscient little spirit telling you exactly where things were going wrong.

But even so, Prometheus didn’t guide Grey in the most obvious sense. Plus, Grey had to literally pay it to fix his blueprints for him. And even then, it didn’t tell him what was wrong. He had to use his own intuition and understanding to realize why Prometheus made the changes it had.

Still, there was no doubt that Prometheus’ existence peeled back a lot of the time he would have had to spend otherwise perfecting the blueprints.

That said... a blueprint was one thing... being able to actually have the skill to craft it was another.

And Grey had done it with ease.

Amunet could only let the top drop, and Grey sat by and watched as she took the Call of the Silver Moon into her hands.

It reacted far more fiercely to her than it did to him, but this was to be expected. The Call of the Silver Moon was quite literally designed to be used by someone with her bloodline and no one else.

And the result, well...

Grey wasn’t sure what to expect, but maybe he should have already seen this as the only logical possibility.

Amunet blazed through the first heartbeat, the second, and the third. Other than light grunts that came from her lips, she seemed unmoved by the rest of it all.

The fourth echo pulsed through the air, and her skin split apart.

Grey’s eyes narrowed. The fourth heartbeat meant +400 physical stats and +400 Stamina. Or rather... it should have.

However, there was something a little different here.

Amunet wasn’t gaining physical stats like Grey thought she would. Instead, all of the stat points were being directed into INT and PER.

That was to say that rather than splitting a total of 1,600 stat points across four stats for +400 each, she was instead gaining +200 for every heartbeat she endured across just two stats.

Grey was immediately confused. He was sure that this was a physical training method, but then he realized his mistake.

The Silver Wolf represented the Old Ones. The Crimson Wolf represented the Vampires.

Logically, if there was going to be one of the two who was tied to physical training... shouldn’t it be the Vampires?

If he found an item called Call of the Crimson Wolf, it would make sense. But this was Call of the Silver Moon.

Grey couldn’t help but grin.

He didn’t mind this at all. He wasn’t gaining INT and PER because his body was compatible with the Call of the Silver Moon. It couldn’t benefit from a boost to stat points that were so complex and almost ethereal, so the residual energy was directed to his body instead.

It was likely that if he found some version of Call of the Crimson Moon, the boost to physical stats would be even more ridiculous.

’I’m going to have to do my best to find that for sure. It’ll help Mauve and Brad a lot, too. This should lay a good foundation, and it’ll make withstanding Call of the Crimson Moon more possible.’

Of course, Grey was just talking out of his ass. He had no idea if this Call of the Crimson Moon even existed.

A fifth echoing heartbeat resounded.

This time, Grey sensed a shift. Not only did she gain an additional +200 to her INT and PER, and Stamina as well, but she also gained +100 to all her physical stats too.

Now, she had gained a total of +1,000 to her INT, PER, and Stamina.

However...

Amunet coughed up a mouthful of blood, her body shuddering from head to toe.

She grit her teeth, trying to hold on. But by now, their usual pearly whites had become a mess of smeared red liquid. Blood leaked from her ears and nose, her teeth clenched too tightly for her mouth to join the party.

Grey frowned, but he didn’t say anything. The first tempering was undoubtedly the most important, but five seemed to be her absolute limit. Trying for six was, well...

Basically, no Old Ones managed this, let alone Amunet, who was benefiting from a stolen bloodline.

Grey jumped out of his skin before it even happened, as though he could see it coming.

The sixth heartbeat echoed, and a fist-sized hole appeared in Amunet’s chest as her heart burst at the seams.