William Oh invented the Laurence Emeris Anchorite Bullet Launcher. (patent pending)

Will jolted out of bed, hands curled into claws as he tied to seize his dream-opponent’s clothes.

There was nothing in the room but chill air and quiet snoring.

Will ran through his Memory Key as he slipped out of bed, heading out to the balcony, overlooking his Stronghold, enjoying the handful of minutes he got while everything was still and quiet, before he was drawn back into the raging current of the day.

How do you make food a fixture of the land? Will mused. That was the requirement to create a resource node of meat.

A ‘fixture’ implied it had to sit there for quite some time, be nearly inextricably bound to the land itself.

Obviously it was hard to do that with food without ruining it.

How else am I going to pay Aguilion with infinite food?

Will had two ideas, and neither of them were particularly appealing.

Dry and salt the shit out of enough meat

to feed the entire stronghold, until it was nearly inedible and then bury it for a year before attempting to turn it into a resource node.

Or freeze the food. Use an ice made to flash-freeze the same quantity of food, making the ice itself into a permanent fixture of the land…somehow.

Salty and tough, seasoned with dirt, or freezer-burned. Which one would a dragon be less adverse to?

The question was moot at the moment, since Aguilion hadn’t shown up.

Will glanced behind him at the bed, beckoning to him with the illusions of comfort. It promised that he’d be able to sink back into the down-feather mattress and surrender his consciousness to sleep…but he knew it was a lie.

Will would just lie there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the day to start.

And while it would be comfortable, it would only give him more room to think about all the things that bothered him..

It didn’t make sense when he thought about it.

Will’s gut had hated dealing with Marksman. The man simply rubbed him the wrong way.

And yet, life went on, despite Will’s misgivings. There was no sudden betrayal or dramatic reversal. Marksman had impolitely fucked off with the powerful set and Will had heard nothing from that front at all, leaving him feeling like a restrained man waiting for a whiplash that could come at any second.

Was it worth the Influence?

Maybe

Will had used the Influence to kick the entire Stronghold in the ass. What had been a sleepy, tiny frontier town had already doubled in size in only a few months as prospectors flooded the town, looking to buy their advanced classes or make a huge profit selling magical ores to the rest of the world.

With the 8th Floor rapidly growing safer, and a Lord on every Floor between here and the outside world, they had set up a path to Will’s doorstep that was almost criminally easy.

Will heard grumbling in the bar, old salt Climbers complaining about ‘civilians’ making it up to the 10th Floor the ‘easy way’ and being pissed that the difficulty had diminished, tarnishing their own personal achievement of reaching the tenth Floor.

It was true. The 4th and 8th Floors were the greatest filters, which was why most civilians stopped leveling at 15 and most Climbers at 35, respectively.

Will and Carrie Envar were kicking back a lot of money and supplies to Roger Oilton, who was expanding civilization on the 4th Floor, and Ghoul was pacifying the 8th Floor out of a desire to reduce his own workload.

Many of the ‘sightseers’ would go back down, finding the high stakes world of the 10th Floor not to their taste, but every wave of new civilians saw a handful of them lingering, intoxicated by the promise of power and riches.

The Burned Stronghold was growing quickly, despite the lingering squirming sensation in Will’s guts.

Yeah, it was probably worth it.

There was a distinct separation between how he felt about things and how they turned out.

Much like dentistry, certain things sucked ass for a while, but turned out better in the end. Will relaxed a bit.

Is this where dramatic irony catches up with me? Will thought, tensing up.

…

I guess not. I need to commission a dentist, because these frontier Climbers have awful teeth. Sure you could just pull the teeth out and use a priest to restore the tooth, but a dedicated class would get it done faster and cheap enough that climbers could actually afford it.

Will got dressed and went down to his office, where Badur was finishing up the morning reports.

“Milord!” Badur said, leaping out of his seat. “You’re early.”

“Couldn’t sleep anymore,” Will said through a yawn, accepting the sheets of paper and perusing through them.

The price of salt, anchorite and flash glass were in free-fall, but Sammohan didn’t really care because he’d already made it big, and the Burned Stronghold wasn’t relying on those exports alone to sustain themselves. And the Climbers were happy about the cheap salt.

Wil had salted potatoes the other day for the first time in years.

“How’d finding an expert to deal with the ores go?” Will asked. since the price of those materials were tumbling straight down, they could no longer make an enormous profit from them…mostly because the demand for those ores was fixed. People made a handful of useful parts from flash glass, like Loth’s traps, self-moving hinges in noble residences, a few gimmicky things like spoons that could become forks, weapons that could extend or retract.

It was mostly the demand for weapons that fueled exports.

If Will could increase the number of things flash glass could be used for, he could increase its value. once the ore was worth only a bit more than the stone it was mined from, he could make convenient items in bulk and sell them for a modest mark-up, making a vast profit since he had effective control of the flow of flash glass in the Tower.

You know, these papers are a lot like the ones in the lord’s office that I read when I was exploring the abandoned Oilton castle, Will thought, musing.

Taken from novelbuddy, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The sudden thought made Will tense up, waiting for some upstart Lord who coveted his Stronghold to show up suddenly with a plan to kill him.

No? Nothing?I guess not.

“Milord?”

“Just thinking,” Will said. He’d unintentionally paused mid-scan, noticeably enough for Badur to comment on it.

“I’ve found an inventor on the 5th Floor who specializes in the materials we have in abundance. He agreed to move up in exchange for better support.

“I can do that. When can I meet him?”

“I’ve got a meeting set up for you in the early afternoon.”

“I’ll be-“

Establishing Quest notification (Lord):

The establishing quest is a system put in place by the agreement of the majority of Lords many years ago. Its purpose is to give young Climbers a high-reward quest to give them a generous amount of XP and money to begin their Climb.

This has proven to be a successful policy, but it is not free.

As you have acquired Influence above a certain threshold, you may now participate in, and donate to the annual Establishing Quest.

Certain benefits may be purchased for the Lord of the Burned Stronghold.

Any Influence spent on these benefits will be converted to XP and gold for Quest rewards.

Possible Purchases:

List of participants, and their rankings – 5000 Influence

Reveal Class of participants – 10000 Influence

Send a representative – 8500 Influence

Attend the quest personally – 3000 Influence

Post job offers in the Exchange hall – 1000 Influence

Vote on the quest’s objective: 10000 Influence per vote

71 hours, 58 minutes and 23 seconds remaining until the Establishing Quest begins.

…So that’s how Frederick Wyrd found out about me.

Will turned his attention to Badur.

“I’ll be there. In the meantime, I need to talk to Anna. Anything urgent?”

“It’ll keep, milord.”

Will nodded and went into town, finding Anna at her messenger service. The chubby blonde girl was humming cheerfully as she moved baked goods from the back room into the display.

“Can you connect me to Bakton?” Will asked. “I wanted to ask him for advice.”

“Sure,” Anna said. “Give me a few minutes. Have a cookie while you wait.”

Three cookies later, Anna’s body shifted to match Lord Bakton’s, taking on the swordmaster Lord’s imperious manner.

“What’s up, Will?” Bakton asked. “Is this about the Establishment Quest?”

“Yeah, just had a few questions.” Will said.

“Make it fast.” Bakton said, leaning on the counter. Will wasn’t sure if it was Anna doing the body language or if Bakton was actually leaning on some countertop on his side of the conversation. It was a strange thing, communicating in this way.

“Why is attending personally so cheap?”

“Because no lords are free enough to attend, and those that are free seldom do, because having lords together in the same place is a recipe for someone getting killed. The price dropped as a result.” Bakton replied.

That would imply that sending a representative to scout young Climbers was expensive because it was in high demand.

“Does everyone always get the ranking list and the Class details?” Will asked.

“Most people get the ranking list and not the Class details. Year after year, you see the same classes over and over again. Sure, you might find something special, but probably not. And if they were special, they’ll probably be high on the ranking list. It’s usually redundant, and basically gambling.” Bakton said.

“Does anyone pay to vote on the quest?”

“Rarely. The System usually chooses a quest that serves the greatest number of people, so voting on which quest is given to the Climbers is more of a selfish flex at best. At worst it might cause some suspicion that the Lord who voted may have designs on certain participants.”

“…Alright, thanks, Bakton.”

“See ya, kid,” Bakton said with a nonchalant wave.

Anna’s body morphed back into her own as she closed the connection between herself and the copy of her in Bakton Keep.

Will turned his attention back to work. He snagged a couple more pastries and went back to meet up with Badur’s inventor.

In the meeting room, the man was already waiting, pacing back and forth and muttering to himself.

He had a bad comb-over, his clothes were disheveled and covered in smudges. An excellent sign that he had more respect for his own work than he did for Will.

“Ahem,” Badur cleared his throat.

“Ack!” The man jumped in place as he spotted Will, straightening his jacket and hovering next to a black leather case.

“Greeting, milord, I’m Welcome! I mean, I’m Laurence Emeris, an inventor.” The man said, stumbling over his words as he spoke directly to the floor from his bow.

“Nice to meet you, Laurence. Pastry?” Will asked, holding out one of the pastries from Anna’s shop.

“Ooh!” Laurence took the pastry and shoved it into his mouth like a squirrel, continuing to speak as he did so.

To the side of the table, Badur buried his face in his hands.

“Mm, mmh, mmmmf, mmman.” Laurence said.

“Excuse me?” Will asked.

“Your logistician was quite impressed with my portfolio, and so I brought it up for you to see.” Laurence repeated after swallowing, moving over to the black leather case. “I’ve got nearly a dozen proof-of-concept items.”

Click, clack! The locks on the leather case clicked open and Laurence opened it to reveal a hodge-podge of items that Will couldn’t easily place.

“My first, simplest item, the anchorite suspension!”

He placed a little frame holding three pieces of anchorite. To of them were held securely in place while the third hovered freely above them.

“These three are set up so that the two on the bottom absorb shock from the one on top!” He pushed the top one down and it was resisted by the other two, until he took his finger off and it wobbled in place.

“Imagine carriage rides being as smooth as silk with suspension like this. They’ll literally be floating on air.”

“I bet you could use it to absorb blows in a shield or armor, too.” Will said.

“I…I suppose? Although making it work on suspension is a lot easier because the axis of movement is strictly controlled, whereas in a combat application, the direction of the force could easily cause the anchorite to detach from…”

Laurence began pacing back and forth, muttering to himself.

“I like him,” Will said to Badur, who heaved a sigh of relief. Laurence didn’t notice their exchange at all as he only continued muttering to himself.

“So if we change the shape to convert angular momentum, we might arrive at the answer.” Laurence said, frowning as he paced back and forth while rubbing his chin.

“What else?” Will asked, flagging Laurence down.

“Oh, Oh! of course. There’s more!”

He rummaged through his case for a moment and withdrew a piece of flash glass about the size of Will’s forearm.

“Watch!”

The flash glass bent, then unbent.

“…And?”

“This might require someone with more imagination.”

My imagination is fine, Will thought, eyes narrowed.

“Lucky for you I’ve brought a small model!”

The inventor pulled out a toy carriage made of wood and flash glass.

As soon as he put it down, it began moving forward under its own power.

Will could see that the bendy part were basically cranking a lever that was connected to the wheels, making the whole thing move forward.

“I present, the automatic carriage!” Laurence said. “And it’s not just limited to carriages. It can make weaving automatic as well!” He produced a little mini-weaver that produced a tiny square of cloth in about fifteen seconds. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

“I wouldn’t use it for weaving, I’d use it for moving freight and pumping water

and sewage in and out of the Stronghold, respectively.” “Can you make a fluid pump that works on its own like this?”

And with an anchorite rail system, we could move so much more freight in a single day.

“It should be possible, but…the weaver?” Laurence said, holding up the little machine.

“Do you know any seamstresses?”

“…No?” Laurence said.

“Well, if you wanted to make a machine that could compete with the speed of a level 50 Seamstress, you would need to make one as big as a warehouse, and hire half a dozen people to keep it working smoothly. And the quality would be worse. The material cost would be higher too, because some Seamstresses can literally make more cloth with less thread.”

“I…see.” Laurence pouted, looking down at his invention.

“There’s still plenty of ways this can see practical use.” Will said. “Cloth manufacture is a competitive field that would be difficult to automate, but no one wants to pump shit for a living. Show me what else you got.”

“I’ve got a freight transport proof of concept I designed with an anchorite relay system. Here.”

Laurance pulled out a model with iron rails connected by black metal anchorite with a tiny cart made of anchorite.

Laurence put his finger on the tiny cart.

“You see, Anchorite doesn’t just absorb momentum. It can also preserve or dispense it. There’s an interesting reaction that happens when you apply Charge to Anchorite that can instantly flip the polarity between two pieces, where one dumps all it’s potential momentum into another piece, and if you set up a relay, that flip can propagate from one piece to the next, and with just a little push-“

BOOM!

Will flinched as the tiny black cart shot forward, breaking the sound barrier before punching a hole through his solid stone office wall and continuing on into horizon. Thankfully they were on the fourth floor of his tower, so none of the Stronghold’s buildings got holes punched in them.

“I…Deepest apologies, milord!” Laurence shouted, grovelling. “I’m still working out the kinks of the transport system, but I assure you those problems will be solved by the prototype stage!”

“…You’re hired.” Will said.