The Iron-Crag was less of a mountain and more of a jagged, petrified scream of the earth. In Loop 01, it had taken me weeks to navigate the lower slopes, plagued by the Black Miasma that curdled my mana and made my slime body feel like it was being dipped in acid.
This time, I was prepared.
"Archivist, initiate [Partial Oxidation: Ozone Layering]."
I didn't just filter the air; I chemically altered the boundary layer of my membrane. By creating a thin coat of ozone-rich gas around my silver surface, I neutralized the corrosive properties of the Miasma before they could touch my core. To the Goblins trailing behind us, I looked like a shimmering lantern in a sea of toxic soot.
"Stay in the light!" I commanded. "If you breathe the black mist, your blood will turn to lead. Follow the wolves."
The Fang-Pack, now my lobotomized scouts, moved with eerie synchronization. They didn't sniff the air for prey; they tracked the thermal signatures I projected directly into their minds. We were a machine of flesh and silver, cutting through the mountain's shadow.
"Master," Fenris rumbled, his paws crunching through the obsidian shale. "The scent ahead... it is the dwarf. But there is also the smell of rotting sulfur and lightning. The beast is already at his throat."
"We're early," I noted. "Good. Baron is more grateful when he still has all his limbs."
We rounded a jagged precipice and found the Alchemist's "Last Stand."
Baron was a sight to behold. In Loop 01, I had met him as a broken man. Here, he was in his prime—a barrel-chested dwarf with a beard braided with copper wire, swinging a hammer that glowed with a frantic, orange heat. He was trapped against a cave entrance by the Calamity-Class Chimera.
The beast was a monstrosity of mismatched biology. Its lion head roared with the sound of grinding stone; its goat head spat bolts of black electricity; and its serpent tail hissed a gas that melted the very rock.
"Back, you overgrown rug!" Baron roared, his voice cracking. "I've got enough nitro-salts in this pouch to take us both to the ancestors!"
The Chimera lunged.
I didn't shout a warning. I didn't cast a flashy firebolt. I simply used the geography against it.
"Archivist. Mapping complete. Target: The oxygen-nitrogen ratio in the beast's immediate radius."
< Calculation Synchronized. Initiating [Atmospheric Decompression]. >
I didn't attack the Chimera's hide. I attacked its biology. I manipulated the air pressure around the three heads, creating a localized vacuum. It was the same principle as a bell jar experiment.
The lion's roar died instantly—sound cannot travel in a vacuum. The goat head's electricity flickered and failed, deprived of the ions in the air. The snake tail's gas expanded violently, blowing back into its own vents.
The Chimera collapsed. It thrashed, its three heads gasping for a breath that wasn't there. It clawed at the empty air, its powerful muscles twitching in a frantic, suffocating dance.
Baron froze, his hammer mid-swing. He looked at the gasping beast, then at the silver-violet slime sliding casually toward him.
"What in the seven hells..." he whispered, his goggles sliding down his nose. "Did you just... did you just kill the air?"
"Physics is a much cleaner executioner than a hammer, Baron," I said, my voice vibrating with a calm authority.
I didn't let the Chimera recover. I moved over its twitching form and unleashed a [Molecular Shear]. My silver body thinned into a blade of liquid metal vibrating at thirty thousand cycles per second. I didn't slice the beast; I disintegrated the atomic bonds of its neck.
One. Two. Three.
The heads rolled away, cauterized by the friction of the shear.
< Calamity-Class Core Acquired. > < Experience Synthesized. Evolution Progress: 38%. >
I turned to the dwarf. "Baron, son of Thrain. You're looking for Starmetal. You've been digging in the South-East vein, but that's just the runoff. The motherlode is three hundred meters below us, protected by a layer of volcanic glass that your pickaxes can't dent."
Baron stared at me, his mouth agape. "How... how could a puddle know my father's name? How could you know the veins of this mountain better than a dwarf who's lived in its cracks for ten years?"
"I've lived this life before, Baron," I said, deciding that a half-truth was more effective than a lie. "In my dreams, I saw this mountain fall. I saw the Holy Kingdom burn your forge to ash. I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen."
I extended a silver pseudopod, offering him a "handshake" of sorts.
"I have the Goblins for labor. I have the wolves for security. And I have the knowledge of a world where we didn't use magic to build—we used logic. You provide the craftsmanship. I provide the blueprints. Together, we build a kingdom that the 'Miracles' of the Church can't touch."
Baron looked at the dead Chimera, then at the silver light of my core. He was a man of metal and fire; he respected power, but he worshipped competence.
"blueprints?" he grunted, a slow, toothy grin spreading through his copper beard. "You speak like a smith, puddle. Fine. Show me this 'motherlode,' and I'll forge you a crown that'll make the Gods weep."
"I don't want a crown, Baron," I said, turning back toward the cave. "I want a railgun."
By the end of the week, the Iron-Crag was no longer a tomb.
The Goblins had set up the first refinery under Baron's direction. I used my [Thermal Manipulation] to act as a high-precision kiln, allowing us to reach temperatures that the dwarf's charcoal fires never could. We didn't just smelt the Starmetal; we purified it at a molecular level.
I sat in the center of the new forge, watching the first ingot of Starmetal glow with a pale, blue light.
< Warning: Fixed Point 'The Adventurer's Scouting' approaching in 14 days. >
"I know, Archivist," I thought. "Let them come. We're not building a village this time. We're building a factory of the void."
I looked at my reflection in the polished metal. I was still a slime, a shapeless mass of silver. But inside, the gears were turning. The "Scholar" was dead. The "Sovereign" was beginning to take shape.
"Baron!" I called out. "Bring the copper wiring. We're going to teach these Goblins about electromagnetism."
[Volume 2: Chapter 3 End]