Bab 329: Chapter 329: Inspector of Gadgets
In some ways, Hunter's underground hidey hole that he used for work was reminiscent of Dabble's forge back in the sect. It was a place that oozed workmanship as there were scattered desks, parts, and unfinished diagrams scattered all over the place without a care in the world for the concept known only theoretically as 'neatness'. There wasn't really any semblance of logical coherence down here and it felt more like a tornado of engineering had swept through the place. Hunter himself would probably know where he'd left everything he needed but for anybody else stumbling into this mess... Not happening. You'd need a hundred page guide just to locate whatever it was you were after and, even then, God knows what the thing you were looking for even looked like! Ares wasn't sure that, if left alone down here for an hour, he would even be able to find a pen if someone asked him to. No pen in Hunter's experimental lab would ever bear any resemblance to an actual pen, he'd probably make the thing into a round ball or whatever. Some of this crap he'd invented was just him messing around for the sake of curing his boredom but, in all fairness, there was definitely also a lot of stuff in here that looked really important. Considering how useful some of the incredible gadgets Hunter produced were, it was only natural he would take a break from producing masterpiece after masterpiece to play around with the dumber ideas lurking in his brain every now and then. Ares knew that drive all to well and couldn't exactly keep it buried forever either so he wasn't going to judge when he saw a remote-activation whoopee cushion sitting on a workbench a short distance away. If Ares' eyes weren't failing him, the thing had ventilation shafts carved into it meaning you could even release a foul odour on demand to simulate the real deal and embarrass your target thoroughly... This was pointless! Although, maybe, one of the nobles on this Federation had asked for such a thing in order to shame a rival in public or something. Ares wouldn't put it past the kind of people that were aboard this ship to approach humiliation in such a way, not at all.
Hunter put Nibbler down into a small bed, with a mini radiator built into it, that was sitting atop a table and the sharkdog dozed off almost immediately. Running around earlier knackered it out and with the warmth of it's cosy little cot it couldn't help but fall into the land of dreams. He kicked his back leg outward a few times but he was smiling still so it was probably a good dream in which he hopped into a pool and chased small fishies around by doggy paddling after them. Anyway, Hunter bent over, opened up a cabinet, and dug through a pile of spare parts until he found a small widget. After picking up precisely what he'd been after, he turned and walked over to the longest desk in the room and dragged over some papers. He scoured through them to search for instructions, picked up a tiny cage on another nearby desk, one roughly the size of five hands placed directly on top of each other, and then shoved the widget into the key hole of the tiny gadget, as per the instructions, before handing it over to Ares.
"Ok, so this is the trap gadget you were looking for... But it's a bit of a weird one. I really went all out with this and got a runemancer buddy of mine who works for the C.O to clock in a couple hundred hours and we combined our knowledge to create this little bad boy. Rather than explain it, 'cos that's boring, I'll show you how it works in real time. Normally I'd take you into the back garden upstairs but that's long and we'd just have to come back down here later anyway so Nibbler can act as a substitute prisoner for now. One of the good things about this cage gadget is that it's pretty stealthy and so it won't wake the tyke up."
Ares watched as Hunter set up the cage by hiding it underneath the table Nibbler's bed was sitting atop. Hunter took a few steps back, pulled out a device that looked like a remote detonator, and pushed the button, causing it to click downwards into place. Ares activated Omniscience here because he was curious to see how it worked and, as he guessed, a strand of mana linked the cage and the detonator. This presumably meant that there was a limited range on the detonator but that was fine anyway as, between his Prowler and Aejaz' concealed serpent, hiding by a trap wasn't an issue and nobody would ever detect Ares before he sprung his ambush. Also, beating up a person and knocking them unconscious was another strategy that circumnavigated the need for stealth. Ares mostly wanted a portable way of carrying people / animals and it was less so an item he was interested in for trapping or ambushing purposes. He didn't mind doing the hard parts himself if need be, he just wanted the convenience that came after and, thus, the limited range of activation was a non-issue. Now all that remained to be seen was what the tiny cage did exactly and how secure the thing trapped inside was.
Ares probably wouldn't get a visual demonstration of the prisoner trying to break free, because Nibbler was going to just keep snoozing his shark heart out, but he'd trust Hunter's word on how effective the cage could be and take it at face value. Plus, with Omniscience, Ares could kinda figure it out himself anyway. His own judgement on how sturdy something was could be pretty damn accurate even if only because of his destructive tendencies giving him a good idea how much punishment any given object could take. 'Will this survive a Grand Annihilation, yes or no?' was a question Ares found himself asking often in his brain... The answer was usually no but this time would be different! Hopefully! Not being able to resist a Grand Annihilation didn't mean the end of Ares' interest in the product but it would dampen his excitement a little if that were the case because he wanted something really impenetrable and reliable. He held onto hope as he watched the gadget do its thing.
What was once a tiny cage rapidly expanded into a massive cage as it phased through Nibbler and trapped him inside it. The cage was now about as big as a medium sized shed and could house multiple tens of sleeping Nibblers at any given time which was a very pleasant and soothing image. It also meant that the size was adequate for holding humans in, even if there were more than one at once that needed to be transported, so all that was left was to judge how solid the cage itself was. Ares was about to take a closer look but the cage wasn't done showing off its tricks yet as it began rapidly shrinking! Ares was briefly concerned for Nibbler, as he was still inside, but Ares quickly realised that Nibbler was shrinking along with the cage! Spatial magic was afoot and Ares could see roughly what the goal of this gadget here was. By shrinking the trapped opponent, their strength would drop considerably as well as the size and scale of the arts they were capable of outputting. If Ares was trapped in the cage, for instance, when he reduced to roughly the size of a middle finger, his Grand Annihilation would become a Mini Grand Annihilation and let out little more than a few puffs of golden smoke. His physical strength would also basically disappear so, even if the cage itself wasn't the toughest thing ever, and that was doubly true when it was small, the prisoner would not have the might needed to break out and escape.
The real power of the cage wasn't even the cage itself but, rather, the shrinking effect that could pacify targets without the need for knocking them out. Also, it seemed like the cage had some runic inscriptions related to the anti-magic pillar, allowing it to nullify any potential threats to the structure of the cage via acidic magic or anything similar. It also meant a trapped foe couldn't just Blink out or whatever so this thing looked good! It was easy o hide, as it was small and could be buried along a pathway with relative ease, and was hard to counteract once it had been triggered. you could maybe get away with just straight up using this thing without even weakening the target first, it was just that effective if used properly. It also seemed like the spatial magic would allow the user to pull targets out of their imprisonment individually instead of just opening the cage and releasing the floodgates which was very handy too. It was quick, efficient, functional, and reliable. This looked like it was long past the 'experimental' phase and yet it wasn't on the shelves upstairs... Maybe it was because he'd only finished creating it recently? Maybe there were so few of these gadgets that he was only willing to sell to select clientele? Honestly, Ares didn't know why Hunter wasn't marketing this product openly but Ares was happy to buy it nonetheless.
"Looks great. Unfortunately I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume the one I buy won't come with a sharkdog inside it like this one?" Ares joked as held up the lightweight, miniature prison with the sleeping Nibbler inside it. Nibbler looked very precious in this small form and Ares got a massive kick out of the teensy snores he was letting out. This also served as confirmation that the victim's body did change in relation to their size and it wasn't just an illusion or anything. This meant they would be easy to carry and not be capable of causing too much of a fuss. They'd unshrink the second the cage did, r they were let out, so there was also no risk of permanently deforming the target which was yet another benefit. If Ares was going to great lengths to keep his target alive, by caging them instead of just blowing them up, then the last thing he wanted was to accidentally permanently shrink their brains and cause irreparable damage or anything. If Hunter felt comfortable showcasing this thing on Nibbler then Ares needed no further convincing that this thing was fully safe to use on high-value targets...
Or, actually, now that Ares thought about it, this was a great transportation tool too! With his Voidwalk, he could shove family and friends inside the cage and then drag them along with him wherever he went without them slowing him down. Even if somebody knew how to fly they still likely wouldn't outpace Ares' Voidwalk and so not wasting precious time waiting for others was valuable in it's own right. This thing had incredible utility and could be theoretically used for movement based purposes forever as it scaled with Ares' speed. So long as the person residing inside didn't try to break out, which a willing passenger wouldn't, then this was a great tool to have even though the purpose was completely different from Ares' original intention! "So what's the name of this thing anyway?"
Ares very gently passed Hunter the cage back, so as not to give the sleeping sharkdog a bumpy ride, while he answered the question and went on to discuss the price. "It's an artifact called the Puny Prisoner. You'll outgrow the trapper properties of it at some point, and people with high enough cultivations will be able to break out no problem so upgrading it for that purpose later on will be necessary, but it has many many uses outside what you'd expect of it. Transport is the obvious one but you can also hide people with this by shrinking them and burying them under the floor or something. Sneaking people into places they shouldn't be is also a possibility and I've tried it myself by bringing Nibbler into no-dog zones. Sky's the limit with this thing and you can get pretty creative with the shrinking powers it offers. Hell if you can shrink both yourself and an opponent stronger than you, you'd even the odds of your fight and maybe cinch a cheap victory! Definitely a worth while investment.
If you're wondering why I never made it public... Put simply, I think it's too valuable and I don't want people to know I have such means at my disposal. People would inevitably no longer trust me wherever I go because I could be packing a small army in my back pocket and that breeds distrust. I mostly use this to bring Nibbler along with me on my journeys but if people started frisking me for this treasure then I'd have to leave him behind more often than not. Sure I could make a lot of sales with this thing but I personally get a lot more use out of it by keeping it hidden. Is it selfish? Yeah but, I mean, I invented it so who cares! I have no obligation to sell the stuff I create here so not everything makes it into the hands of anyone but me. Sometimes I create stuff that's way too powerful to put into the hands of ordinary, or potentially evil, people and so those gadgets will never see the light of day and that's perfectly fine in my book! I'm not after attention with these things and some of them will generate more than I can bargain for.
Speaking of bargains, usually something like this would cost an arm and a leg but I'm in a good mood today, you're a friend of Onno's, and I technically screwed you over what with the twisted and seagull stuff. You got paid less by the Federation because of me, right? Those damn cheapskates will always look for any opportunity to hold back the cash and it's seriously shameful behaviour. Anyway, I think a discount is in order and I won't hear any complaints about it because I've made up my mind. Besides, I don't sell Puny Prisoners anyway so the price is made up from the get go! I'm not reliant on selling these to turn any kind of profit so really, don't worry about the price and just accept it. On that note, I'm not going to charge you nothing either because there are limits to how generous I can be. So with all that being said, I think fifty high-grade sounds about right!"
Ares whistled to himself, as that was incredibly steep for an artifact, but he nodded along anyway because it was entirely justifiable when looking at the quality of the artifact objectively. A professional runemancer, well versed in spatial magic, would take however many hundreds of hours just to do the engravings on one of these things... Throw in the sheer craftsmanship from Hunter himself, and the capabilities of the artifact, and it was honestly worth at least twice that much at bare minimum. Ares was getting this for a steal and he had no business complaining. Not that he would anyway, he wasn't expecting a discount from the start. He'd analysed the artifact, come up with roughly the same price tag as was asked of him, and was prepared to pay in full from the beginning. He would quite happily walk away from this place only dropping 50 high grade on such a great item... Aejaz, who'd been silently looking around this whole time, almost fainted, however, because at that price he would just straight up steal the thing and sell it off later! Screw that! Then again, his line of thinking would change one day when he had immeasurable stardust at his own disposal, he was just shocked because it was a significant sum compared to what he had in his almost empty wallet. It's not like Aejaz was actually poor or anything as he had some incredibly outstanding treasures in his Stalker and his Concealed Serpent. He was richer than he knew, and by a massive margin at that, it's just that none of it came in a form he could see and appreciate on demand. A pile of money was a prettier sight for Aejaz than a pair of binoculars and a token, after all.
"Sounds good to me. Thanks for the discount, I appreciate it." Ares made no fuss about denying the discount and accepted things as had been laid out, taking out the 50 high grade on the spot and handing it over. hunter took the money, freed Nibbler and placed him and his bed back on the table as neither came with the artifact for free, and then gave over the cage to its brand new owner who stuffed it inside his Primordial bag of tricks for future use! Trade numero uno was done and dusted and now it was time to see what Hunter had in store for Ares' second desired item. If the quality was as good as the first then Ares was in for a treat!
"I don't have any environmental defence gadgets..." Hunter mumbled as he dug through a box filled with broken gadgets. "... But I do have something that can help resist or reduce the potency of mental attacks... There was this one monster I fought a long while back called 'psyball'. Pretty much exactly as you'd expect, it's a pink ball of psychic energy that rolls around launching mental attacks at people. It's quite bouncy and hard to track so it has a very hit and run style that makes it really difficult to pin down for good. As mental attacks are also rather uncommon, it's incredibly deadly for such a plain looking monster and can kill stronger opponents with a bit of extra effort. It was a hunt I struggled with greatly because every time I tried running after it I was trapped in an deadly illusion while it bounced around through the jungle we were in and rolled away to safety. If such a process repeats itself multiple times then the chaser's brain will just give out.
'Why not stop and let it escape?' you must be thinking... Well it's mental attacks are addictively painful. Have you ever had spicy food so hot it left a tingling sensation on your tongue that was oddly more-ish? The mental attacks from the psyball have a similar, pleasurable sort of effect on the brain and people get lost in the feeling. Most don't even realise their life is fading and they eventually succumb to a death they never saw coming. Even if you track the psyball down it can just resort to psychic pillar arts that hit hard and fast to finish off your weakened mental realm from all the earlier chasing. Long story short, if you don't have good mental resistance then this monster will take advantage of that and run you ragged before poking holes in your brain once and for all. Not the toughest monster I've ever fought but absolutely one of the trickiest. I never wanted to have to deal with such a thing unprepared ever again so I experimented with a gadget, one that could alleviate the issues I had with that encounter, and came up with.... This!" Hunter yanked a couple of capsules out from the bottom of the box and laid them all out on a nearby desk.
"These little things are one time consumables that can drastically reduce the effectiveness of incoming mental and psychic attacks, sometimes even outright destroying them if they aren't strong enough to break through the defences. The good thing about these capsules is that they stack and you can use multiple at once if you feel particularly threatened for whatever reason. The problem, however, is that they're cumbersome to make and require a good deal of time and resources that I don't really have consistent access to. That being said, I created these capsules and never really had a use for them because psyballs are rare monsters that hardly show up. I've gotten to a point now where I have other gadgets, that I've invented since these capsules were created, that could make my life easier against such a monster anyway so I have no use for the capsules I've made. I won't ever make any more capsules but you can have these for cheap, as they serve me no purpose and have just been sitting here collecting dust, if you're ok with that?
I do have a few other options but they're not as consistently useful and have relatively niche activation requirements. You can use them more often, as there isn't a limited supply but, honestly, I would recommend these capsules regardless. They contain within them concentrated anti-magic that was designed specifically to counter mental magic of just about any kind and a single one can prevent a transition realm level mental attack on its own. There's about ten of these things so you'll have plenty to spare even if you use one or two for random attacks that you would rather just not deal with. The rest can then go towards a powerful attack you wouldn't be able to guard against otherwise. There aren't many people who use mental attacks in Sheryashka but, when you do come across someone who does, these 'Mental Blockers' will prove their worth a thousand times over. I'd say they're worth about five high grade each but I'll give them to you for half off and call it a day. Deal?"
Ares nodded and pulled out even more stardust because this was worth every single one! He thought back to the tournament, during the assassination attempt, when some asshole tried to blast Ares away with that psychic pillar attack before everyone even knew what was happening. Ares almost succumbed to that attack and, while part of it may have been a result of him messing around a bit too much, it was a memory that had stuck with him ever since due to the surprise of it all. Had it been a normal art Ares would have been in complete control. As soon as it was revealed to be a mental attack, however, everything went completely to shit and he had to pull out the Primordial Blade of all things just to save his life. The measures he needed to go to just to deal with a single mental attack was ridiculous and so keeping these Mental Blockers handy until he could find a method of protecting himself, presumably with disintegration, was wise.
Mental attacks sucked!
So few people ever dedicated themselves to this path so it was rarely worth investing in measures to counteract it... But that was how they got you! Expert cultivators in niche fields had an innate advantage in that nobody ever really knew how to deal with them on the spot and Ares' scythe wielding was a great example of that. Who the hell knew how to fight against a scythe? Who the hell knew what the poison coursing through their veins was made of and how to counteract it? Who the hell knew how to block against a dedicated mental attacker? Etc... Having a tool like the Mental Blockers made Ares feel at ease knowing that he'd blocked off one troublesome avenue to taking him by surprise. Throw in the Puny Prisoner and there was little he couldn't do when put on the spot. Kill, defend, trap, run, fight at any range, avoid mental attacks, dodging, weapon mastery, physical strength via enhancement and later Garmr... There was basically nothing else Ares could think of that was particularly important other than environmental resistances but he had the Scaled Insulator for cold weather and the Black Ice Bane, to some extent, for hotter climates. He wasn't really supposed to be an all-rounder cultivator with a pillar affiliation for destruction and, yet, he'd managed it anyway. Whatever the world, or the cultivators living in it, threw at him, he was prepared! And this all came at a great time too because his adventures had literally just gotten underway not even a few days ago! After putting the capsules in his Blade, he felt ready to take on any and all foes!
And with that done, it was time leave. All the transactions Ares wanted to make were over and done with so he dared not peek at any of the other stuff and ask about any the gadgets on the shelves as he knew he wouldn't be able to resist buying them too. The gadgets here were neat and he would inevitably go on a spending spree, ending up broke as a beggar, if he hung around any longer. Instead of falling prey to the businessman before him, Ares bid Hunter goodbye, and Nibbler too by stroking his fin once before leaving, and then departed from the shop with his brother in tow. Thankfully Aejaz didn't steal anything from this particular shop as Ares would have felt pretty bad after being given discounts and what not. He would have marched his brother back inside and tried to right that particular wrong but it seemed like Aejaz did have a conscience, sometimes, when it came to this sort of stuff. In a few days, or more like whenever the Firestarters made their next move, Aejaz would be free to go terrorise the rich like a cowardly robin hood as much as he pleased.
For now, though, it was time to head on back to their temporary abode and enjoy some nice home-cooked dinner. Ares could have explored the immediate area some more but he really wanted to go back and finally get started on absorbing the body tempering resources as he wanted to know how they'd interact with his adept trait. He had a feeling he already knew the answer but maybe he'd be surprised! Either way, that was enough Hunter for now. Ares had a feeling he'd be seeing more of the guy in the future, though, as there were still some pretty major foes of the Federation en route to cause trouble. Based on Ares' off-the-cuff estimations, the order of trouble was as follows: Firestarters attacking the restaurant, auction, more Firestarter stuff (the meeting he would be crashing), the Scylla, more Firestarter stuff (maybe ending it all), and then the mighty Krakyrn. Things were subject to change, obviously Ares couldn't predict everything, but he felt confident that this was all mostly accurate. Hopefully things would fall into place and then he could enjoy the last days of the journey in peace!... Hopefully... Nothing ever seemed to go right with Ares at the helm.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone