This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/RangerFrank on 2024-11-02 20:57:50+00:00.

Cover|Vol.1|Previous|Next|Maps|Wiki+Discord|Royal Road|WebNovel|Tapas|Ko-Fi|Fandom/wik

“Um, what exactly are you looking for, Master Taurus?” Duke Godwin asked curiously.

Bowen hummed to himself as he stroked his beard. “May you guide me to where all your dungeon core shards are, Your Grace?”

The young duke looked slightly flustered, clearly unaware of where the shards were in the massive underground vault. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn it was his first time down there, as there was probably no reason for such a young child to do so. He probably wasn’t even allowed to be down there if he wanted. Thankfully, Sir Blackwood was there to assist.

“I’ll take you there now, Lord Taurus,” he said, motioning for us to follow him.

“So…is there any particular reason you brought me along?” I asked while I looked around the underground space.

It wasn’t disorganized; if anything, the vault was well maintained, with items stacked into crates or placed neatly onto shelves. Each crate or shelf had some identifying number on it that a corresponding document would lead someone to if they needed to find something. There were many things down here, dozens of weapons from ornate daggers to large golden halberds fitted with gems. Shelves holding gold and silver ingots, dried herbs, and even preserved monster parts.

Many shelves were dedicated to what appeared to be random items at first glance, but they were no doubt dungeon items. Hopefully, one of them would be helpful in the ongoing battle. I had heard that Prince Xander brought dungeon items to aid the city’s defense, but I had not seen any. They must have been kept under lock and key.

“Well, I figured since you could see mana, that you would be able to assist me in finding what I need,” Bowen finally answered.

“Oh? What makes you think I can do that? To find something with a certain amount of mana, to be specific,” I questioned.

Bowen shrugged to himself and said, “If you can see someone direct mana through a wall, then it was an educated guess that you could see the amount. I’m assuming you can, right?”

“I can indeed,” I confirmed.

“Interesting…well, I’ll be needing that ability of yours in a moment. It seems we’ve arrived,” Bowen said.

Sir Blackwood gestured to the table and some barrels next to it. “The unidentified and non-appraised shards are on the table and in the barrels. If you are looking for high-quality shards immediately, they are against the wall on the shelves, going from low to high quality starting on your left.”

“Thank you, Sir Blackwood. We shall take it from here,” Bowen said as he picked up one of the shards and examined it.

It was a small blue shard, about the size of a pebble, and looked ready to crack with even the smallest amount of force. He twisted it around between his fingers and then tossed it to me.

“What do you know about appraising dungeon core shards, Kaladin?” Bowen asked.

“Bigger is typically better. And the less damage it has, the higher the quality,” I answered.

Bowen nodded in approval. “A relatively straightforward system, yes? However, there are many nuances to it all. Appraisers will spend hours reviewing a single shard, numbering the cracks, and finding patterns in the madness only to set a high gold count for certain patterns or specific amounts of cracks on the surface. Some even say color directly correlates to quality, although that is unfounded as far as I am aware. Frankly, I find it to be nonsense for the most part. There is just simply too much that we don’t know about the hearts of these dungeons…”

“So you want me to find the purest shard with the most amount of mana then?” I questioned.

Bowen surprisingly shook his head. “Not quite. What I need are shards that would be considered…medium in quality but have high amounts of mana in them. When shards are in this middle stage from low to high purity, many people find it troublesome to appraise them and often- let me see…how are these, for example?” Bowen said as he reached down and grabbed two shards.

One was a light blue, while the other was a soft yellow. Volumetrically, they were about the same, about the size of a child’s palm. As for purity, they also looked similar at a glance, each with a fair amount of missing cracks and chunks. However…with my Soulsight, that was not the case.

“The light blue one has more mana than the yellow. I’d say about fifteen percent more, give or take. I don’t have a real way to gauge the exact amount, though,” I said.

Bowen grasped the light blue in his hand, placed the yellow one back on the table, and looked up at me with a smirk. “That in itself is precious information. One wouldn’t even be able to figure that out based on appearance and not until they were fitted in some wand or staff. I couldn’t find a difference even if I channeled magic into them. That is the nature of these middling shards and exactly what I need.”

“I’m assuming it has something to do with your golem magic?” I asked.

Bowen nodded again as he began searching through the barrels. “Indeed. You see, I can share sight through my golems if I use a dungeon core shard, although I rarely do, as it is both challenging and tiresome. Maintaining that connection at length requires a lot of concentration, and going so far as to reach the outside of the walls and into enemy lines requires my utmost attention and abilities by the end of it.”

“And I can’t use large, pure dungeon core shards for a golem small enough for scouting. The expense is too high, and using weak, low-grade shards is all but useless,” he said.

“So, that’s why you must stay with shards in the middle. However, the medium-quality shards are inconsistent in their mana quantity. And this is where I come in,” I said.

Bowen smiled again as he handed me a few more shards. “Exactly. Many years ago, I tried to perfect this, but after wasting large sums of coin, only to get lackluster results, I’ve finally been able to return to it. So, I need about twenty or so; shall we?”

—

It took roughly an hour to rummage through all the available shards and find the best ones. In the end, Bowen got about twenty shards to his liking, and together, the two of us walked over to the city’s western wall. We stopped at the rear, where all the catapults and trebuchets were.

The siege machines constantly fired off large boulders over the walls and into the undead horde. The new stench of rot was even more overwhelming than it was in the early hours. Regardless, Bowen found a place to sit, and I joined him. He immediately set to work and placed an orange-colored shard on the ground. He backed away from it and sat down, outstretched his hands, and began to concentrate.

I was curious to see what it looked like, so I fed mana to my left eye and watched Bowen work his magic. I was surprised to see just how much mana was forming into such a tiny spell core, and within seconds, the spell began to take shape. From thin air a tiny bird made of wind formed. The orange shard floated through its airy body and settled directly to where its face would be.

The air golem bounced around and flapped its wings a few times before getting a running start and jumping into the air. I wondered if that was necessary, but one’s imagination did play a factor in their magic, so if it worked for Bowen, then that was just how it was. After all, what was the point of making logical sense of a bird made of wind magic being controlled by golem magic anyway?

The golem soared into the sky and I quietly observed as Bowen silently controlled his magic. After a few minutes, Bowen abruptly flinched and sighed deeply while opening his eyes.

“I figured that wasn’t going to work…” he grumbled.

“Did something take it down?” I asked.

“Indeed, I didn’t make it very far before a flying undead launched itself into my golem…they are rather weak, considering all they need to do is hit the shard a single time to cut my vision,” he explained.

Boiwen shrugged and said, “Well, onto the next one.”

He pointed to a crew manning a trebuchet and called out to them, “You there, hold that boulder for a moment!”

“Yessir!” the man replied.

Bowen made his way to the placed boulder that was ready to fire and set another dungeon cord shard on top of it. From there, the space where the shard sat on the rock morphed, and the stone went with it. In a few moments, a small animal the size of a rat with a shard on its forehead made of stone had formed from the very stone itself.

I see…launching the golem over the wall…not a bad idea as long as the rock doesn’t crush the golem on impact.

Bowen gave the crew the okay to fire, and he returned and sat down with a sigh. “This is going to be unpleasant…” he mumbled.

The crew gave a final shout, and the boulder was flung into the sky from the trebuchet. Bowen flinched again with gritt…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1gi68wb/deathworld_commando_reborn_vol8_ch226_what_must/