#103 – I feel so dumb right now

#103 – I feel so dumb right now “Hmm...” I hmm’d as I stared at the remains of my broken gun self via Ether-vision of the goggles. And yes, it was my gun self again, because I’d swapped out Heat Vision for Soulbound Item again as soon as I could this morning. Strangely enough, I’d gotten used to it not being part of me again and now it felt weird again to have that skill active. Gah. Anyway, why had I dropped Heat Vision when it had been vital to deal with the invisible guy? Well, that was because, as many people had pointed out, the goggles could fill in the same role, perhaps even better. From my experience, dungeon mobs always at least had Ether, and since the lizard assassin ninja guy used Tempor, I could always switch to Tempor-vision in the worst case scenario. That aside, I was beginning to understand why simply shoving more Ether into the gun couldn’t regenerate it, unlike my flesh body. All it had taken was making small cuts on myself – against protests of some chatters – or my clothes self and watching it heal with the goggles. Disturbingly enough, it seemed like the process that restored my clothes self with Ether was exactly the same as what was happening when my flesh body regenerated. In other words, either the clothes were still somehow alive – even when not soulbound – or my body was... what, artificial? I did not like thinking about that. So I didn’t. Instead, I tried figuring out how I could make the same process work for my gun self. There had to be a way to fix it using Ether, right? repeaeaeat: you could just fuse the rocket launcher I hummed and frowned harder. “Well, I could, but if it doesn’t work, then I waste my rocket launcher.” And I didn’t want to waste my rocket launcher. I hadn’t even broken it in yet! Who threw away a perfectly good rocket launcher before blowing something up first? Regardless, even with the goggles, I still had no idea how to repair my gun self. It just didn’t make sense. The whole trip to the water park dungeon had been for naught... Well, not completely, obviously. But repairing the gun had been the main reason why I had gone in the first place. I sighed. “Chat, inspire me! Throw your craziest ideas on how I could repair this at me! I refuse to believe that it’s broken forever!” I declared and dropped down on my superpillow to stare at the ceiling of my makeshift shelter. Suggestions began pouring in, ranging from pretty smart to completely dumb. Like, how exactly would dancing a macarena on top of a dungeon chest help me repair my gun? Seriously, chat... GonguuH: empower might be do it I hummed in thought as I remembered the skill upgrade I had glossed over until now. Armsmaster: [MERGED] with Craftsman. Instinctively use equipment created by yourself. Upgrade: Empower (3SP) Upgrade: Berserker (4SP) Upgrade: Ultimate Fusion (15SP) Empower - Infuse Ether into the resulting product, making it sturdier and more powerful. Berserker - Temporarily infuse Ether into your weapons to make them stronger in a fight. Oh, hold up. Wasn’t that exactly what I needed...? Or rather, why the heck hadn’t I gotten this before I’d done all my fusing?! I felt like slapping myself. Worst of all, people had probably suggested this the moment I’d broken my gun, but my forks just hadn’t told me about it because... Oh. Because for some reason, my forks were set to not forward me anything unless it was vital life-saving information. Goddammit, when had that happened? When had I changed that? And how come I hadn’t realized it sooner? Was it when the sword guy had hit me with that weird mental berating thing? Or when I’d blacked out in the fight against the maid? It had to have been some kind of mental attack that messed me up. Surely... I sighed again. Well, it didn’t matter now. I just needed to be more mindful about this from now on. Sure, I didn’t want my forks to constantly distract me with random information, but dammit, this would have been nice to know before. Well, still. Even though it would be nice to have for all the fusing, that didn’t mean that it would magically allow me to regenerate the gun. But it was worth a try. Both Empower and Berserker, actually. What if ‘make the item stronger for the fight’ meant ‘make the item not broken’? That would be pretty weird, but hey. I had a lot of skill points now. If it meant repairing my gun self, I could spare seven points for the upgrades. The problem was that I didn’t know whether it would actually work. Hmm... “...Alright, you know what? Sure. Even if it doesn’t work, I’ll still probably use these skills anyway. Let’s do it then!” Replace [Appraisal] with [Armsmaster]? Note: [Appraisal] will not be re-equipable for 24 hours. Y/N Purchase the [Armsmaster] skill upgrade [Empower] for 3 skill points? Y/N ‘Empower’ skill upgrade unlocked! Purchase the [Armsmaster] skill upgrade [Berserker] for 4 skill points? Y/N ‘Berserker’ skill upgrade unlocked! There. Twenty-five points left, plus the eleven coins. I still had plenty. With everything ready, I turned on Ether-vision of the goggles and stared down at my broken gun self as I took a hold of it and reached out with my Ether while using the new skills. First, I tried using Empower and... “Oh my god, I wanna slap my past self,” I muttered as I watched my Ether seep into the gun and react in a very similar way to how my clothes and flesh healed as soon as I tried out the Empower skill. It took a lot longer, but I eventually began to see the changes. The cut in the barrel slowly fused together again and the whole thing gradually regained its shape. I just had to be careful with how I used my Ether, because I had a lot more direct control over what it did than I’d had before. Craftsman had only allowed me to move the Ether around, but Empower let me give it a different... texture, I guess. To shift the Ether’s form to accomplish different things. ...Could I do this even without having the skill equipped? Like with Craftsman? Could I have done this all along, just hadn’t had the skills? That is, real life skills, not the system skills? Hell, could I do this with other skills as well? Could I breathe fire even though I didn’t have Fire Breath equipped? That seemed to be yet another thing chat had been suggesting for a while, but I hadn’t paid much attention to. Damn my past self. If it was possible for me to use the skills manually, then only having three skill slots wouldn’t be a problem anymore. It would solve so many issues! Well, I ought to try doing that later. Right now, I had a gun to repair and upgrade. It took almost half an hour of meticulous Ether manipulation – that kinda felt like sewing together a tear in a shirt or something – but eventually, my gun self had been fully repaired. “It’s done, chat! Welcome back, my beloved! I won’t ever let you down again!” I assured my gun self. Then I grinned and gleefully brought out the towel and the rocket launcher from my backpack. It was a bit of a pain and I had to be careful not to let any of it get on my hands, but I managed to squeeze the death water out of the towel and then redirected it into the gun’s water barrel via Hydrokinesis. Then, since my gun was fine now – I quickly tested it, of course – I proceeded to fuse the rocket launcher into it. It was surprisingly easy, perhaps in part because I could now tell better what exactly was happening during the fusion thanks to what I’d learned from Empower. The rocket launcher turned into a blob of orange and slid into the gun without a problem. The resulting object didn’t look very different from before – still a dragon head-shaped gun – but it was now missing the three metal prongs in front of it and the gun barrel itself was separated into smaller holes of three by three grid, just like the rocket launcher. ...But the overall size hadn’t changed, so the holes were actually kind of tiny. How the hell would this even work? With a bit of trepidation, I walked out of my little shelter, aimed my gun self at a random rock, and then tried firing off a rocket filled with water. To my surprise, a rocket did actually fire out of the barrel, but it was a regular sized one – something that would never fit through one of the smaller holes – before careening toward the rock and exploding into water. Physics could go cry in a corner. “Well, it works, chat! Heck yeah! We’re so back!” I grinned. Finally, I had my main weapon back. Stronger and better than ever before. With all the other stuff I’d gotten from the water park, I was readier than ever to take on the city dungeon and hopefully clear it this time. Before I did though, I wanted to spend more of my skill points, just to give myself that extra bit of an edge. But... there actually wasn’t all that much for me to spend my points on. Getting new skills was out of the question since I wouldn’t equip them anyway, and as for the upgrades... Well, I’d actually gotten every single one for Armsmaster and Rend only had Brain Fog left, which, in a fight, I wasn’t sure if it would be more useful than just using Rend normally. That just left getting the last Streamer upgrade, upgrading Soulbound Item to Soul Strike, and... getting Triumvirate for a third Soulbind. The last one still felt a bit iffy, so I held off on that, but even without it, Soul Strike might potentially come in handy, depending on whether dungeon monsters even have souls. ...I actually kinda hoped they didn’t, now that I thought about it. I didn’t like the implications of if they did. “...Okay! Upgrade time!” Purchase the [Streamer] skill upgrade [Action Hero Cameraman] for 5 skill points? Y/N ‘Action Hero Cameraman’ skill upgrade unlocked! Twenty points left. Congratulations! You have achieved 1/2 tasks necessary to unlock the next tier of human skills and upgrades! I blinked. “One out of two tasks...? All I did was buy out all the upgrades...” I shook my head. “Well, I assume the other task is completing the Limit Break, so... Yeah.” I’d been afraid of going for it, but it was starting to feel like the right time for it was coming. Just wanted to beat the city dungeon and then...? Then I would go for it. ... Anyway. I summoned John and began groping around the new mental buttons I’d unlocked with the upgrade. In one moment, he was right in front of me, and in the next, he was looking down at me from far above. My eyebrows rose as I made John look around and into the distance. I made him fly up as high as possible and... “Oh my god, chat! Why didn’t I get this upgrade sooner! This is so cool! I can see the spaceship from here!” It was very far away and barely visible, but it was visible. I continued to have John look around in hopes of spotting other points of interest. There was the office building and crater dungeons... There was a mountain range from where the river flowed... I narrowed my eyes. Was that an ocean? Far far in the distance where the river flowed? It was hard to tell, what with the Earth curving down... Oh, hey. At least that confirmed that this world was round as well, huh? “What do you think, chat...? Should I try going to the ocean afterwards...? There was something, right? One of the quests said so...” But chat ignored my question for some reason. I was about to pout when I realized that they were all watching and listening from John’s point of view right now, so they couldn’t hear me. I teleported John right in front of me again and grinned at the camera. “Hey there, chat. Long time no see.” Then I looked dramatically into the distance. “Looks like we have a lot of work to do after this dungeon, eh? I wonder what’s at the sea... Hmm...” Then I put my hands on my hips and looked into the camera again. “Well, that’s after the dungeon, though! We’re gonna totally smash it, chat!” But first, more upgrades were in order. Purchase the skill [Soul Strike] for 10 skill points? Y/N ‘Soul Strike’ skill unlocked!