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Chapter 100. Red Hot Liquid Metal
🕑 Added 2025-06-15 15:00:07 +0000 UTCA/N: And we are at one hundred. I want to thank you guys for supporting me. Without you, I wouldn't have made it this far into this journey. Enjoy.
“...what?” Rafe couldn't help but ask.
The system didn't track truths. Noid would have told him if it did. Truths were not a function of the system. Yet.
Eventually, the system would track everything. It was a new entity, which was why it was eager to learn. Through some unknown circumstance, it seemed Rafe was about to give the system access to truths.
If it started keeping track of how truths grew…well. This would make advancement easier for future generations. Even for Rafe. It would be a boon unlike any. But why did he have to be the first? Again.
And besides, this was the reason some people wanted the system to have sentient overseers. As it grew, it was going to have access to way too much information.
He had introduced wide scale cracking, albeit inadvertently. Then he'd become the first F grade ever to unlock a quest system. If he'd understood Hestus right, he got more quest points and credits from a single quest than most other people did. And now the system was looking to use his early and potent quest system for its own devices.
Not that he could even get himself to care about it for more than a few sporadic seconds. All he cared about was the truth that only his eyes could see.
Blacksmith( lvl. 100), Metallurgy ( lvl. 253) skills are reacting.
‘Ding’ First insight detected.
Insight into liquid metal (beginner)
Your insight into liquid metal has grown…
Your insight into liquid metal has grown…
Insight into liquid metal (beginner>>intermediate>>advanced)
Note 1: Insights grow until the peak, like techniques, after which they are upgraded to concepts instead of continuing into mastery.
Hmm, so they were rated like techniques? Another similarity, although they just upgraded instead of developing into mastery and beyond.
Note 2: Your insight into liquid metal, being more specific than an insight into hardness or metal, is judged to be a pinnacle-tier insight(Other tiers include normal, moderate, high, elite tier and finally, the pinnacle). As pinnacle tier insights are very rare, rewards shall be dispensed after the process is finished.
Would you like to proceed with your concept visions.
Y/N.
Continuing concept visions.
It was the second time the system had given him options but then proceeded to ignore his misgivings. He would have complained, but his brain was reeling. Liquid metal was hot. Was it really the right insight for him all along? He had fought off Filoria's frigid insight before, now he thought about it.
The more specific the insight, the stronger it was, it seemed. Did that mean his concept would have to be that much more specific as well to be strong? As specific as a named sword perhaps. He did have a sword that could be any kind of sword he imagined. Only he hadn't named it yet.
More to the point though, he hadn't really cared about the strength of the insight. That was why he and Noid had valued simplicity instead.
Still, this was kind of his fault. He had known he was going to use the concept of the sword. He had studied lots of metals, made sure his blacksmith skill had reached level one hundred before he even considered unlocking his insights. And he'd gotten the concentration potion as well.
He had gotten a more potent insight than he'd planned. And it had skipped two stages of development. Hmm, now that he'd momentarily fought off the concentration potion, he considered whether he was a high enough level to be using advanced insights.
Whatever. Nothing mattered now except for another chance to grab at the secrets of the multiverse.
And he promptly cursed and tried to deny everything he was seeing.
The system, when it had first given him the reward of concept visions had told him they were based on his path. And there in lay its trap. Rafe thought he had swindled the system. It seemed the damn thing knew a thing or two about misdirection.
His next vision contained space. Nothing but space. Chaotic space.
In one instance he was an innocent boy with a mushy body. He was writhing and screaming in agony as he swam in uncontrollable spatial energies. His first trip to the Deufont Dungeon, Rafe remembered. They cut him, the spatial energies did.
“Shit!” Rafe screamed. “Don't tell me that…”
But it was.
The second vision was a man swinging an axe. Two swings. The first created a dark swathe of energy, the second created a vibrant green energy. The two energies created such contrasting feelings, Rafe felt they must be opposites. And the two met and the line of their meeting bubbled with such unstable energies it tore a hole in space.
“No!” Rafe yelled. “I cannot accept this. I shall defy this fa—”
But then the vision led him to another vision of a swordsman cutting. The same swordsman from his first vision. The one who'd been holding the great sword.
This time Rafe was forced to watch the sword descending at such speed it formed small tears in space along its path. Then it cut a long swathe into chaotic space, but it was simultaneously cutting through a whole lake of water so Rafe hadn't seen this in the past.
A sword so sharp it can cut through space…
That wasn't his thought, was it? It couldn't be. It had been planted there. How in the world had the system interpreted sharpness as space splitting sharpness?
Rafe mentally shuddered. What the hell was the system going to do with his insight into momentum?
Would you like to continue your concept visions? Y/N.
That had not been enough to unlock his insight into sharpness? Or whatever version of it the system had been evilly plotting to give him?
And now he had only one vision left and two insights to unlock. He wondered if his insights would end up skewed. Like for example, would he have two peak-tier insights and one normal to mid-tier? How would that affect him?
And then the extraneous thought was cut. Again.
The third vision was nothing but a ball. A basketball? No, a round metallic ball. It spun through the air, hurtling to some place far away. Gaining momentum as it moved. Gaining force, speed.
It was becoming unstoppable. So unstoppable it seemed to move at the speed of light by the end.
It smashed into a ball of dirt. A planet maybe. And all that speed was transformed into force, into strength. From speed to strength. Momentum. They collided, and the planet exploded while the ball of metal was sent spiralling back into space.
Rafael's last insight.
He liked how straight forward this last one was proving to be. The system had yet to completely derail it.
But of course there was more. His insight into momentum wasn't just about hitting strong like that metal ball. It was about stealing momentum.
For example, if the planet the ball had crashed into was impossible to destroy. Maybe it was made of elastic bouncy Earth? And of course assuming it was bigger but had less force than the dense ball of metal because it was stuck. Physics dictated it would stop the metal. Steal the resultant momentum, as momentum could not be transferred, only transferred from one object to the next. Instead of being destroyed the planet would be forced to move.
The system seemed to just be going through Rafe's collected knowledge. It went through his first monster hunt when he became an adventurer on Aeon. Of how he used the hobgoblin’s stronger attacks to get into advantageous positions instead of being pushed back.
Then there was his fight with Gaoshom. Gaoshom was a greatsword user. He had focused on strength above all else. And Rafe had used that to his advantage.
Then there was a snapshot of his first vision. Of that great sword user who had cleaved a lake and a distant mountain in half. He was going to follow a path of the sword, after all. Seeing the sword was a part of all his legacy visions was a relief to him.
And then the vision changed again. He didn't know how he knew, but this was perhaps the last version of the vision.
There was a man holding some kind of chain in his hands. On both ends of the chain swung two heavy metallic balls. They were silvery and polished to a radiant sheen. And then he started to dance.
Swinging the metal balls around. He never stopped. The metals gained momentum as the intensity of the dance increased.
Then some kind of pressure stopped the first ball. Rafe startled. He had been too entranced by the balls to keep stock of the surroundings. The ball had been stopped by the wall of a mountain, although it had managed to destroy part of it and wedge itself in deep.
The second ball was still swinging on its own. Gaining more momentum. And without pause, it hurtled right into where it's counterpart was stuck and deposited all it's momentum there.
After the resulting dust cloud was clear, Rafe saw that a bigger part of the mountain had been cleaved off. And the first ball was still trapped in the partial mountain.
The other ball had bounced off with negative momentum but it wasn't long before it was swinging again to gain more momentum. And then it was back to assist its partner in destroying the mountain.
Rafe watched the interplay for a while. This time the system even allowed him to rewind the vision a few times.
“Having two balls is the best, isn't it?” he asked the dancing man. “Man, having balls of steel? You must not see the mountain that is getting a girlfriend as much of a challenge, right? That is why you're screwing a real mountain, isn't it? Maybe I need a pair too. That would make it easier to pummel them when they misbehave.”
He looked at his crouch again as an innocent smiling face with wide baby-like blue eyes appeared in his mind’s eye.
But then the extraneous thoughts were cut as the legacy visions came to an abrupt end.
