Fate Weaver’s Legacy

#033 – Call me Nana, the mad scientist!

I took another sip of the Tempor Juice I’d gotten from the second floor’s boss and let out a satisfied sigh.

“Still tastes great, chat. But I can’t really tell at all if it did anything… Let’s see…”

I extended my hand and with a quick flip of the mental switch, my fused sword was in my hand again.

“Alright! Looks like it did work.” I nodded with a smile. “I still can’t tell how much Tempor I have at all, though. It’s so weird… And it’s weird that it’s weird. It’s weird that I’m used to feeling some magical energy in the first place, you know?”

I paused my rambling as I took the last slice of the pizza – I was very hungry, okay? – from my magical pizza box and eyed it with narrowed eyes.

I chewed and swallowed before continuing. “...Anyway, I guess I should figure out how to refill my pizza. I hope it’s somewhat automatic, cuz I have no idea how to direct Tempor the same way I move Ether.”

I closed the pizza box and rested a hand on top of it with a frown while taking another bite of my last slice.

I tried focusing on my Ether first, since I knew how to do that, and the box greedily took it when I offered it. In fact, it took quite a lot of it and I still couldn’t tell whether it was taking Tempor as well or not.

“...This is pretty expensive, chat… Ugh, now I’m gonna have to be even more careful with my Ether.” I grimaced, thinking about the bottle of refined ooze I’d been forced to fully use during the last floor.

“Is it even doing anything, or…?”

I opened the box and blinked in surprise when I discovered half of the pizza back inside the box, still hot and smelling delicious.

I grinned.

“Heck yeah! Quick life hack for infinite pizza! Delivery boys hate her!” I giggled before continuing to chomp on my pizza.

My eyes glided over the ensuing messages in the group chat and I hummed and giggled to some of them. I even replied to some of them, pretending that they had come from real people.

Deep inside, I knew that none of it truly mattered in the end…

I shook my head.

“Anyway! There’s still some stuff I could try merging… Hmm…”

Jeofffff: hold on I have an idea
Jeofffff: the gold coin gives a skill point right
Jeofffff: so what if you fuse it with pizza
Jeofffff: can you farm skill points by eating it?

My eyes went wide and I made an excited noise at the back of my throat.

“Oh, that would be so broken!” I exclaimed, silently thanking my subconscious for coming up with the idea and the Streamer skill presenting it to me via the chat.

I shook my head again, trying to purge that way of thinking.

“Or, maybe it just turns the pizza golden. That would kinda suck, but eh… I can always just split them apart again. Let’s try it!”

I grabbed my trusty bucket, chomped on some ooze – god, I was really getting tired of that – and began the experiment. First, I pulled out the gold coin from the wallet and appraised it again just to check the wording to see if I could predict the results of the fusion.

Fate Weaver coin (gold)
A second highest denomination divine coin made by the Fate Weaver. A hundred gold coins can be fused into a single platinum coin with the use of Ether. This item can be consumed to gain 1 skill point.

I hummed and turned to my precious pizza box with a frown.

“Actually, it’s a consumable… Just like the popsicle. Even if the fusion gives me skill points, it’s probably going to be limited like my bracelet,” I rationalized.

Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. So I shrugged, grabbed both the coin and the pizza box, and prepared to use Fusion on them.

But for some reason, it wouldn’t let me. I flipped the mental switch over and over, but the coin refused to turn into pure energy like it should.

“It’s, uh… not working, chat… It’s not letting me use Fusion on this.”

I lifted the coin up and frowned at it from up close. It looked the same as always. Infinity – or eight – symbol on one side, and ominous evil eyes on the other side. There didn’t seem to be anything special about this thing. But clearly, there was. After all, the Fusion sub-skill worked on everything else, including key items that always seemed more important than others.

Jeofffff: damn

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“System item…” I murmured.

I’d thought the coins were just the currency of this world, save for the whole skill point business… But for a coin to grant a skill point when used, it had to be somehow integrated into the system, wouldn’t it? Kind of like the tickets. Those were definitely tightly tied to the system.

I stared out into the room and my eyes caught a random chair in the corner. Then I had a wild thought.

“Well… Let’s test that theory…” I murmured.

As far as I could tell, everything in this dungeon – save for the monsters – was pretty much indestructible. And since dungeons gave out these coins and so many of the system’s achievements were tied to dungeons as well, it was safe to assume dungeons were directly related to the system. Meaning that everything inside would be a system item as well… or something.

Thinking about it, wouldn’t that mean that the coins were also indestructible? I had never gone back to pick up that one copper coin I’d used against the boss since I’d assumed it had gotten destroyed in the aftermath…

Well, whatever. It was just one coin.

I walked over and grabbed a random chair. Then I walked back and grabbed another random item – the magical mop was the closest – and tried fusing them.

As expected, the chair resisted the Fusion and refused to turn into a blob of energy. I frowned, and then tried to do the opposite.

This time, it worked. The mop successfully turned into an orange blob as expected. But then, when I tried to shove it into the chair, it couldn’t be done. The chair wouldn’t let me.

“...Right. I see. I guess this makes sense… Hmm…” I narrowed my eyes and scanned the remaining items on the table, the blob of energy still in my hand.

Then I had a thought and pulled out my already-fused sword.

The description of the skill said that I couldn’t fuse already fused items, but I haven’t yet tested what would even happen. Would it act the same as the coin and the chair?

I tried shoving the mop into the sword and it resisted me… but not completely. Unlike the coin and the chair, I felt like if I pushed it harder, it would work. And so I did. I pushed harder and harder, trying to get the damn mop inside, until finally–

The entire thing made a loud pop sound and flashed, and a moment later, something crashed into the table in front of me, causing it to fall over and spill everything on the ground.

“Wha– No! My pizza!”

I went to sheath the newly created sword, but stopped when I realized it had turned into some kind of polearm. I blinked in surprise, but quickly decided to toss it on a nearby table and deal with it later. Then I rushed to the toppled table, trying to save what I could. The pizza luckily stayed in the box, but the bottle of Tempor juice spilled all over and by the time I grabbed it, lost most of its contents.

“Nooo…!” I whined. “My juice…”

Jeofffff: and thats why you dont leave your drink opened
GeorgeDoshington: lol owned

I finally looked over to the thing that had caused all this mess and found exactly what I should have expected in hindsight.

The unfused golden gate key was there on the ground, likely ejected out of my sword after I forced the mop into it.

Speaking of which…

I glanced back at the weapon I’d created, still on the table.

Ether Volt + Ether-powered mop (fused)
A fusion of two objects.

It looked more like a glaive or a naginata now, rather than a sword. Its total length was about twice my height. Which, again in hindsight, made sense. It combined the blade of the sword with the long handle of the mop.

The only question was whether it could generate both water and electricity and whether it had any cleaning powers like the mop had. I had no idea why or how I would want to clean with this thing, but…

I took a breath and sighed. Then I found the cap for the bottle and this time properly closed it before putting it on the floor. Then I proceeded to lift the table back into standing position and put everything back on it again – including the key sword. I looked at the puddle of juice with a sad frown for one last time before turning around and looking over my new naginata.

It looked… actually really cool. I had wanted an axe or something, but this was awesome too.

“Alright so… This thing doesn’t have the innate skill, but maybe it can actually be more useful…?”

Granted, I had no idea how to handle a polearm, but it couldn’t be that hard, right? I’d learned how to handle a sword fairly quickly, after all.

I grabbed the thing in both hands and pointed it forward at my favorite testing corner of the room. The thing felt right in my hands. I could already imagine myself slashing through hordes of zombies and sentient towels.

I couldn’t help but grin. It might have been accidental, but I had no regrets.

Still, I needed to test it, so I carefully prodded it with my Ether, trying to figure out how it worked now. To my surprise, the blade began to sparkle and drip with water at the same time.

I nodded to myself and stabbed it forward while feeding it more Ether, which caused a lightning bolt to shoot out of it and hit the wall.

Then I stopped and stared as water dripped down from the spot where the lightning had hit.

That… kind of made sense? Well, only if one ignored conventional physics.

Jeofffff: combo element attack!
Jeofffff: water+lightning=more damage!
KaiEbikoOfficial: huh that’s just weird
GeorgeDoshington: I like it its cool

I grinned.

“Yeah! I like it too! It’s really cool. No idea if the lightning does more damage because of the water though.” I shrugged. “Hmm… I wonder if this is really better than the fusion with the key…?”

Jeofffff: nonono
Jeofffff: this is totally better
Jeofffff: you can have key as backup

“I mean… yeah, true. I can summon the key at any moment if I need to. Like if a monster gets too close to me, I can drop this thing, grab the key and slash them.”

I nodded to myself, already thinking of various strategies I could employ with this combination. Then I pursed my lips and glanced back at my new weapon.

“The only problem is that this thing is way too bulky and I can’t even put it back into the sheath…”

GeorgeDoshington: u can youll just look stupid lol
FouxMoux: hold on
FouxMoux: what if you fuse it while the sword is still in the sheath?

I frowned.

“Why would I do that… Wait…” I tilted my head and stared at the sheath still at my hip. “Do you think I could make Fusion count both as the same item? Hmm…”

Again, it didn’t hurt to try. All it cost me was having to stomach more of that ooze. But that was fine. This was for science, after all!

And making myself stronger so I wouldn’t die. That too.

So with that decided, I split the mop from the sword again, munched on some goo, sheathed the sword, and got ready to fuse the two again. The mop turned into an orange blob and got absorbed into the sword once more. I could see the sword’s form elongating before it settled into the same naginata-esque form it had before.

Except now, there was a sheath over its blade.

“Err… Well, that didn’t really do much… Is it supposed to be like this? It looks weird.”

SunOfABeach: it is, actually

“...Really?” I asked, skeptically. “How do I carry it then? On my back?”

SunOfABeach: naginatas and other polearms are usually carried in hand
SunOfABeach: the sheath is just for safety

“Right…”

Well, I couldn’t expect the product of my subconscious to know all the life hacks.

Still, I probably looked very silly, carrying around a stick that was double my height. Especially since my body was still that of a kid.

“Well, alright then. I’ll have to first test this against some zombies, but I like it so far.” I placed the thing back on a table and turned to all the other stuff still left. “Now… anything else I can make…?”

I briefly glanced at the puddle of juice on the floor again with another sad frown before stopping.

I didn’t wanna drink that anymore but… It could still be useful, couldn’t it?

“How about I…” I quickly considered my options and then grabbed the key again, squatted down, and touched the puddle with my other hand. I used Fusion on it and the puddle of liquid transformed into a puddle of shifting purple energy, just as I had expected.

“Alright… Now… Last time I fused a Tempor item with something, it made me a trump card, so let’s see…”

The key absorbed the blob, flashed, glitched, and then abruptly snapped back to its new form… which looked identical to the normal gate key.

I eyed it suspiciously and shot Appraisal at it.

Golden gate key + Tempor juice (fused)
A fusion of two objects.
[INNATE] skill: Quick Fetch - Use a tiny amount of Tempor to teleport this item back into your hand from anywhere.
This object is a Key item.

I stared for a moment and huffed.

“It’s exactly the same as before, chat. I was hoping for… something. Ah, well…”

Jeofffff: it’s different tho

“How is it different?” I raised an eyebrow. Not that anyone could see that.

Jeofffff: it used to say small amount of Tempor
Jeofffff: now it’s tiny

I opened my mouth, then closed it, and then sighed.

“That’s… true. Didn’t even see that… Ugh, I was hoping for something more exciting, though…”

GeorgeDoshington: so spoiled lol
KaiEbikoOfficial: it’s better than nothing

I huffed.

“I guess! Look, you guys can’t tell me that you weren’t expecting something awesome!” I yelled, momentarily forgetting that in a way, they were me. “Whatever! Good enough! Let’s move on!”

Once again, I glanced around the table to see if I could still make something useful.

“...I don’t think anything I can make will be all that exciting, though. Well, it’s fine. I can still experiment. And then, I better learn how to channel Ether without Craftsman or this thing will feel like a waste.” I glanced at my glove and wiggled my fingers.

trelipideliberitation: training montage incoming