The Mechanical Crafter - Book 2 (A LitRPG series) (The Mechanical Crafter series)

by R. A. Mejia

  Invalid target. Please select Metalman or Mechanical Companion.

  “Invalid target? Oh well. There goes my idea of creating a cyborg gnome,” I said as Tognomey struggled to control his laughter and a red-faced Gnomerad crawled out from under the table. I turned the blue scanning light to Parker, and the light turned green as it washed over the mechanical spider.

  Target accepted. Please highlight the item you wish to integrate.

  I’d fabricated and collected several items that I thought would help Parker: a pair of shovels, a pick, a backpack, two trowels, a dagger, a potion bottle, and a magic wand with the spell Spark. I tried to highlight all the items at once, hoping that they could all be integrated.

  Invalid targets. The number of selected items exceeds upgrade locations of selected target.

  While I’d expected some of the items to get rejected since they were weapons or something, I hadn’t expected the information on upgrade locations.

  “Query: How many upgrade locations does Parker have?”

  Target Parker has four upgrade locations: Left front leg, Right front leg, Body - top, Body - bottom.

  The gnomes took notes as I described the areas the notification mentioned: Parker’s two front legs, the top part of his body where I scratched and petted him, and the bottom section of his body, where his webs came out of.

  “It’s annoying that I can’t upgrade each of his legs. Then I could have hidden eight items or weapons inside him,” I commented.

  “You’ll just have to cope, won’t you?” Gnomerad asked with a smirk.

  I ignored the gnome and tried to add each of the items I’d brought, but most were rejected based on one reason or another. The knife and magic wand were weapons, which I’d expected to be excluded but had to test anyways. The large shovels were just too big to integrate into Parkers.

  A kind of overlay appeared in my vision, showing what the integrated item would look like or function as. I could add the potion bottle to his body, but it would just act as a receptacle. The backpack would be integrated into Parker by creating a shell on top of his body that would store items. It didn’t seem particularly useful and looked like the items inside would get jostled around as Parker moved and fought. Only the trowels looked useful since they could be integrated into Parker’s front legs and retracted when not in use. I selected the trowels as the items to integrate.

  Upgrade will take 30 minutes to complete. Please confirm when ready to begin.

  I told my gnome handlers about the details I’d chosen, and they watched as I sat in front of Parker and confirmed I was ready. Parker froze, and the cylindrical tool in my forearm deconstructed the trowels then the tool broke down and rebuilt his front legs. It was fascinating to watch, and after the thirty minutes had passed, I got a notification that the upgrade was complete.

  Parker didn’t seem different, but when I said, “Parker, activate trowels,” The ends of his front legs transformed. A seam appeared at the end of his two front legs, and they folded open like a book until they looked like small shovels. Parker could still walk around, but he moved a little slower as the ends of his front legs were no longer rounded stubs but thin and blade-like.

  Tognomey watched the mechanical spider with a smile on his face and said, “Oh, that is rather neat, don’t you think, Gnomerad?”

  The dark-haired gnome only grunted and crossed his arms as a response.

  I loved the new look but didn’t think Parker liked the reduced movement. I commanded Parker to deactivate the trowels, and the shovel-like shapes reverted to his normal legs.

  I was such a fan of the ability to integrate items that I immediately got to work on doing the same to myself. After I queried the Metalman OS, I learned that I had upgrade locations for every one of my limbs, my waist, and my head along with several locations on my chest and back. I wasn’t sure if it was just because I was a Metalman or because I had more surface area on my frame, but I was glad that I could upgrade my frame more than I could Parker’s.

  I immediately thought of several ways that I could improve my frame. One of my biggest issues was my lack of space in my internal inventory. I only had five spots and was constantly shifting materials around depending on if I was fabricating, deconstructing, or using infusions. It wasted time and severely limited what I could prepare for. The small reagents for my infusions didn’t take up a lot of space but still needed to be on hand if I was going to use them, so I’d bought a belt I’d seen spell casters wearing that had ten leather boxes and had been wearing it since.

  Gnomerad and Tognomey watched as I took the belt from my waist and selected myself as the target for integration. I laid out several of my crafting tools, weapons, and other items I wanted to use. I integrated the spell reagent belt into my waist, and it reappeared with a thin iron plating that automatically opened when I reached out to touch it and closed on its own when I withdrew something. It would prevent accidental spillage and make stealing from the pouches difficult for any thief. I tried to get around the restriction of adding wearable armor by integrating it, but the system wouldn’t allow it. Nor would it allow me to add extra plating to upgrade points on my body. However, I was able to get around a restriction by integrating my Blacksmith Hammer into my right arm. Because the hammer was classified as a tool by the system and not a weapon, I could place it in my right arm and hand’s upgrade location. It took both spots since the hammer was so long, but I didn’t mind. Once it was finished integrating, I whispered the command, “Active Blacksmith Hammer.”

  The transformation from hammer to hand only took a second, and it was pretty cool to watch.

  A split appeared along my right forearm, and the plating there opened up, allowing me to see all of the gears, pistons, and wires that let me move. Buried amongst that was the head of the hammer. Like I was in one of those Transformer movies, my arm and hand bent and folded until my hand was replaced with the head of the Blacksmith Hammer, and the shaft seamlessly flowed into my forearm. The tool stuck out a bit when I compared it to my left arm and hand, but it otherwise looked like it was always part of my body.

  “More than meets the eye, indeed,” I said to myself.

  I used Inspect on the item, and while nothing had changed about its damage or ability to be used to smith, it had a new feature: Integrated.

  Integrated - Item cannot be stolen or removed without the user’s permission or major damage to the item.

  I guessed that meant that I could not be disarmed now unless someone actually took off my arm to get the hammer away from me. While I appreciated the feature, even more important was the fact that I had cleared up a spot in my internal inventory while still being able to use the Blacksmith Hammer quickly.

  Just to test the limitations of my new ability, I tried to integrate one of the shovels I’d purchased into the same arm I had the hammer in. To my surprise, instead of an outright denial, I got another notification.

  Replacement of Blacksmith Hammer with Shovel will take 1 hour to complete. Please confirm when ready to begin.

  For the experiment, I confirmed that I was ready and watched as the Blacksmith Hammer was slowly replaced with a shovel. It took twice as long to replace the hammer with the shovel because the hammer had to be broken down entirely. As the shovel was integrated, my favorite melee weapon crumbled into dust. When it was complete, the blade of the shovel unfolded from my forearm and replaced my hand. It made me feel like Inspector Gadget, and my imagination briefly ran wild as I thought about equipping myself with extendo-arms, replacing my legs with springs so I could jump farther, and integrating a giant magnifying glass into my head so that I could see clues better. My left hand curled into a thumbs up as I gave my sign for a smile. It was a silly and impractical fantasy, but it reflected the potentiality for my Integrate Items ability.

  “Ha! The stupid Metalman destroyed his own weapon,” Gnomerad laughed as he continued to take notes. “The other guys are going to love this story.”

  With the latest abili
ty recorded, the gnomes bid me a good day as I left the Institute and traveled to the market, purchased the iron and fabricated another Blacksmith Hammer, which I then integrated once again. No matter the loss of time or resources, the data I had acquired was worth it. I had learned that I should not replace any tool I wasn’t sure was a solid upgrade and that anything integrated was lost for good. It made me much choosier about what I would integrate in the future.

  After, I returned to the dungeon and found that Parker was more useful with his new upgrade, and he even matched the pace of the miners when digging trenches and pit traps. The increase was significant because it increased the number of traps Parker made and got him more XP when monsters fell into them. Because Parker was killing level six monsters while he was a lower level, he got XP bonuses with each kill. In only a few days he had leveled all the way to level five.

  Designation: Parker

  Level 5

  XP to Next Level: 14,000

  Weight: 20 lbs

  Carrying Capacity: 20/60 lbs

  Companion Points: 2

  AC: 12

  HP: 35/35

  Mana: 9/9

  Str: 12

  Dex: 16

  Con: 12

  Int: 4

  Wis: 11

  Cha: 6

  Traits: Mechanical

  Skills: Trap Making

  Abilities: Bite, Web, Spider Climb, Poison

  I wanted to upgrade Parker with the Stinger ability, which would give him a sharp stinger that punctured the enemy, so I purchased the upgrade and waited while my fabrication tool created a three-inch needle inside Parker’s casing along with hoses that connected to the poison tank, and a piston that would push the needle into the target. Yet, when I commanded Parker to test it out, I got a notification.

  Ability set limit reached for Parker. Please unslot ability to use Stinger.

  It turned out that, while Parker could learn an infinite number of abilities or skills, he couldn’t have them active at the same time. His limit for active or slotted abilities was determined by his intelligence score, which for Parker was a measly four. He could have four abilities ready to use and four skills that he could practice and increase in level. I could swap them out as long as he wasn’t in combat, and it took fifteen minutes for the changed abilities to become usable. It made planning what Parker would be doing more important. After that, I switched out Bite for Stinger since Parker wasn’t at the same level as the monster, and I wanted to test what Stinger did. It turned out that the ability was very much like a piston-driven shot that pushed the needle into a monster and injected the poison Parker was carrying. The stinger itself only did a few points of damage, but it increased the rate at which the poison went off, essentially doubling the effectiveness of the poison.

  Over the same days my wealth had increased to a total of 88 silver, which meant that I could afford to upgrade my team and myself. I forged bronze swords for Frik, Frak, and Greebo, and then I fabricated studded leather armor for them. It took some time, but I also made Manny some bronze splint mail and a bronze mace to match it. The upgrade increased the damage everyone did and their armor class by a point or two. For myself, I finally had enough money to buy enough steel to replace my second Flintlock Rifle and upgrade Parker’s armor to iron plating, which increased his weight by twenty percent and his armor class to 15.

  Chapter 37 - Snow Trip

  After Parker hit level five, we stopped progressing as quickly, and I really started to feel the crushing weight of the approaching deadline as each day passed. The silver we were earning was good, but the XP had been reduced by a little as I was a higher level than the monsters. It was day 29 of the gnome council’s challenge and I still needed 18,321 XP within four days if I was going to reach level eight and be their representative at The Ultimate Research Warrior Competition. It wasn’t an impossible task but I’d need to pull off something special if I was going to bring in an extra 1,500 XP a day. If I failed to meet their goal, the spot would go to Gnomerad and his golems, and I’d have to pay back the massive 21,000 gold debt I still owed the Institute before I would be a free citizen.

  The pressure was on and I started looking into alternative ways to get XP. My first stop was to Sandra Silverclaw, the cute beastkin attendant at the Adventurer’s Guild.

  “Hello, Sandra. How have you been?”

  “I’ve been fine. Long hours here at work, but nothing to complain about. What brings you to me today? Don’t tell me you’ve missed me that much?”

  “Of course I missed you, Sandra. But I came by today because I’m interested in maximizing my XP gain. I hit level 7 recently and was thinking about ways to get more XP each day.”

  “I’ve been hearing that you and your friends have been taking big risks on the sixth level. You all seem to be coming out of it ok. I think you should just continue there until you hit level 8, and then you can go to the eighth level.”

  “Wait, what about level seven of the dungeon?”

  “Oh, that level is hardly visited by any adventurers. The monsters there give pretty good loot and even more XP than the ones on level eight, but it’s so cold and the monsters are so hard to find that it takes hours just to locate a single monster. Unlike the sixth level, there aren’t many resource nodes either so no miners visit there.”

  The news was not what I’d expected. I knew that skipping to the eight level of the dungeon would be challenging. The level 5 miners on my team didn’t benefit from the XP from killing monsters since they rarely participated in combat. Even the fighters on the team were just hitting level 6 and could grind out XP on that level for months. But not me, I needed to hit level 8 and soon.

  “Are there any other ways to boost my XP gain?”

  “Well, you could try the quest board. It’s chocked full of resource quests that you could complete while you’re in the dungeon.”

  I thanked Sandra for her advice and went over to the quest board. It did indeed have quests for the sixth and seventh levels of the dungeon. Most of the quests for the sixth level were for ores and animal parts that were used by crafters. The crafters apparently went to the Adventurers Guild to create quests for specific monster parts they needed and gave the Adventurers’ Guild a reward amount, and the same system that gave XP for killing monsters, automatically assigned XP for the quest as it was created by the guild.

  Yet, the thought of the seventh level of the dungeon wouldn’t leave my mind. I yearned to explore a new level of the dungeon, and despite sexy Sandra’s words, I decided that I would explore the level anyway--just on my own time.

  I took a few quests for the sixth level, quests for collecting tin ore and some Lightning Condor feathers, and met up with my group for another day of mining and killing monsters. But afterward, instead of joining them for an evening of drinking, I turned in my quests and got a small amount of XP and silver for completing them. Then with only Parker by my side, I made my way back down into the dungeon.

  “Spikes! Get your Spikes here! Can’t walk for two feet without your Spikes!” someone shouted as I walked past the entrance to the sixth floor. There was a queue to get into the seventh level, which was surprising considering what Sandra had said about few adventurers going to the level. The people in line all wore fur coats and had flat, empty backpacks on or led mules or mechanical beasts of burden. It was the oddest group that I’d seen yet. Eventually, my turn before the guard came, and while the guard’s eyes widened at the sight of me and Parker, he waved us through after I showed him my Adventurer’s Guild medallion.

  As soon as I stepped into the tunnels that led to the dungeon field, I realized why everyone was so bundled up. The air became increasingly colder the deeper I went. While I didn’t truly feel cold, I could sense the dropping temperatures and knew that most people wouldn’t like the extreme temperatures. However, Parker and I walked down the stone tunnels without much care for how cold it got as it didn’t affect us in the slightest. What did affect me, however, was the ice. The cold
stone floor became slick with it as the waiting people’s breath and the moisture in the air froze. My metal feet didn’t have enough traction, and I kept slipping.

  We navigated through the tunnels, following the line of fur-clad people in front of us, until the tunnel opened into a winter wonderland that would have made Santa envious. The dungeon field reminded me of the winters in the midwest with nearly three feet of snow covering the ground, the evergreen trees, and the hills.

  The trail went up and down the hillside, and the people that traveled it compacted the snow into a hard, slick layer that made it difficult to keep your footing on. I slipped and landed onto my metal rump as soon as I stepped foot out into the dungeon field, eliciting curses from the three people I knocked down as I fell. Parker walked up to me as I tried to sit up and put his two front legs on me as if he was giving me a comforting hug. I chuckled and noticed that the spider had no problem walking along the icy surface, and I wished I had an ability as cool as Spider Climb to help me. It was only once I was on the ground that I saw that the other people in line didn’t have normal shoes on. Instead, they were wearing some kind of metallic spiked shoe that broke the ice up and gave them more traction as they walked.