Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

Back in Sanctuary, or rather outside of Sanctuary, Ed was still playing around with his boat. He was having fantasies about adventurers out at sea! But once reality barged in and told him how incredibly boring yet dangerous the empty ocean might be, Ed's fun finally died down.

'There more work to be done' Ed thought before shoring the vessel and grabbing his tools. He then started carving out new things from the chunks of wood he set aside. He carved out seats as well as compartments for storing equipment such as spears or potions.

In a shocking twist, Ed also made a compartment for cannonballs.

'This boat might fit one cannon' He could give all boats a cannon at the front and then also have ships with many cannons. There was no losing.

'With the turbo, the speed disadvantage can be somewhat mitigated' The cannon and potentially cannonballs would weight down the ship, that would obviously result in lower speed.

'Ah, I should make it easy to get rid of them then' This was a good compromise. As long as the cannons could be detached in a jiffy1, the issue would have a workaround. Not just that, but maybe having a way to dump out the cannonballs could also help.

After carving out these new ideas, the boat all of a sudden looked much more finished.

If this was a transportation ship, Ed would already be satisfied, the ship's only flaw was not being very sturdy. The issue was that he wanted battleships and battle boats respectively. From the memories of W, the lizardmen gained some serious power thanks to Eon's equipment. Puncturing a hole into this fantasy wood would not be an issue.

Which was why Ed got the boat back onto shore before using area store to take it into the system. There, the system charged him a fee to move the large boat to the forge room for modifications. Ed had no choice but to relent.

'I'll need a more convenient method later' Did the system have a forklift upgrade?

With the boat in the forge, it was now just a matter of finding the right material. Considering the opponents for this occasion, Ed decided that the smartest choice would actually be Terrafirm ore.

It had great affinity with the earth, and that also translated to being sturdy. Not to mention, due to earth being correlated to nature, the wooden material and the ore would get along well.

'I never considered the affinity when forging before' He didn't know if there was a point to it when using the system forge. If there was even a small boost, however, Ed would make sure to exploit it to the best of his ability.

The liquid boat quickly melded with the Terrafirm ore to create a much sturdier ship. Surprisingly, Ed got the impression that the liquid in the forge was sturdier, which made no real sense.

'But now I have to verify if this still floats' The Terrafirm ore was earth-related, that also meant it was heavier than the wood. Ed had thought about this in advance and only merged a small mass of the ore. Nevertheless, he still had to verify the weight.

Upon exiting the system space, the large boat lay next to him upside down. The system was still a bit random when retrieving things. That was unless he used the remote materialization upgrade, which the boat was unfortunately too large for.

'Sink or swim' Ed thought before controlling the earth to flip and push the boat into the water. This time he was not in the boat.

Water splashed everywhere, the moment the boat entered the pond, it sunk deeper than before. The hull of the boat was covered at least 25% more than before.

'This won't do' He had to make the boat lighter somehow. Once the actual equipment and lizardmen were put into the boat, he wouldn't be surprised if it sunk another quarter.

The first fix that came to mind were arrays, but actually, Ed could just cut back on the material in some areas.

'The whole boat doesn't need to be mixed with Terrafirm ore' Ed thought as he returned to the system space. Removing the melded liquid was already too troublesome.

'System, is there a better method?' Ed couldn't help but seek the system's help.

But there was no response. That was when Ed suddenly realized something.

'The branding room?' The extractor in the branding room might be able to pull something off.

[Acquiring 'Fluid Extraction' costs 3 orc consciousness. Offer? Y/N]

Before Ed could test it out, the system gave Ed a prompt. Apparently, it was not possible. Not possible currently.

'You screw me and then have me pay you to fix it' Extracting from materials was something that had to be a built-in feature. Why did he have to buy a separate machine and then also dlc for this new machine?

Ed shook his head.

'Acquire it' He shook his head because he had no real choice in the matter! That crooked system!

[Acquiring 'Fluid Extraction']

The system quickly took its payment and began work inside the branding room. Given the nature of the upgrade, it didn't take long before the feature became available.

The only problem was returning the boat to the system space and the branding room for extraction.

'This will cost me a fare for melting it and then also a fare for taking it to the branding room' Ed was finally able to figure out why everything was in different rooms... It was for inconvenience!

Saying goodbye to a couple of other consciousnesses, consciousnesses from the mobs in the mushroom caverns, Ed was able to successfully get the boat where he wanted it. The extraction machine.

[<Terrafirm> Material Ink]

The extraction was as random as always, but fortunately, he got extracted the right material. The ship had grown larger after the merge with the ore, but now it shrunk a bit. The wood's hue was also still tainted.

'I have to extract more, let's just do a few more tries' He could always reintroduce the wooden parts.

[<Celcus Wood> Material Ink]

Indeed, Ed was not as lucky in the next draw. But after repeated attempts, the boat was shrinking even past its original size.

'This should be enough for now' Ed then looked at the branding machine. Could he use the branding machine to apply this material ink exactly where he wanted?

The branding machine pressed down.

[<Terrafirm> has been branded]

The answer appeared to be yes! Which made it extremely bizarre considering that this was an entire liquid boat!

The printing press-like machine keenly focused only on what was directly beneath it. Even if that meant phasing through part of the boat. The liquid boat would act like a proper fluid and move away, only to then regain its former shape.

'Weird, but this is good' Ed braided the wood back into the flooring. He also decided to forget the idea of lightening the load of the ship. He simply reapplied the ore to the hull.

The end result? The boat was less uniform in color, which actually made it look much better. The whole boat sharing a same color was both stupid and ugly, a horrible combination.

'It's good I don't fit both of those descriptions' Ed felt bad for anyone that fit both categories. Again, not himself.

'I'm probably a very handsome orc' There were no mirrors in Sanctuary to verify. Plus, even if he was ugly, he was a super genius orc! He was also a super genius skeleton, and a super genius mushroom, he couldn't fit both criteria!

Back on water, the boat floated steadily. The weight distribution was still pretty even thanks to the machine extracting equal amounts each time. In regard to the branding, it was fairly intuitive, like most things in the system. Getting equal measurements was not difficult.

The boat prototype was almost done, but before wasting his time on adding more arrays, Ed needed to check up on the cannon. They could very well make or break the situation.

Ed looked up at the sky, it was dark already. Shel should have finished the cannon prototype, especially if Sharog helped out in any way.

Confident that this was the case, Ed was already planning what other tasks he could delegate to her.

'Let's see… How about using those lizardmen that brought Brennan?' They still had spears made by Eon himself. These were valuable research targets.

Ed could make some new spears for them and use them to exchange. If that didn't work, there was nothing force couldn't fix.

'I suppose even without them, more spears are in order' Var Agus and his gang managed to make stone spears but compared to their opponents', their spears may as well be made out of dirt.

Shel mass-producing some decent spears with her team could help tremendously.

Ed entered Sanctuary silently under the cover of the night. The sun had recently set and there were still some orcs out and about.

Entering the plaza, Ed could see some orcs closing their businesses for the day. This included people leaving the smithy.

But even as the people left the smithy, the light of the forge was still exuding bright light.

"Shel?" Ed asked as he entered the smithy.

The muscle orc woman was working on the final piece of her cannon when Ed entered the building.

"Oh Hi Ed" She said.

Ed greeted her with a smile. But this smile soon faded. What was with this cannon!?!

This word always triggers me, just pronounce it, Jiffy... Like, it just sticks out like a sore thumb.. So that's exactly why it's here.